Houlihan Lokey, Inc.

recorded today, January 28, 2025. I will now turn the call over to the company.

Thank you, operator, and hello, everyone. I know everyone should have access to our third quarter fiscal year 2025 earnings release, which can be found on the Houlihan Loki website at www.hl.com in the investor relations section. Before we begin our formal remarks, we need to remind everyone that the discussion today will include forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements, which are usually identified by use of words such as will, expect, anticipate, should, or other similar phrases, are not guarantees of future performance. These statements are subject to numerous risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from what we expect. And therefore, you should exercise caution when interpreting and relying upon them. We refer all of you to our recent SEC filings for a more detailed discussion of the risks that could impact our future operating results and financial condition. We encourage investors to review our regulatory filings, including the form 10-Q for the quarter ended December 31st, 2024, when it is filed with the SEC. During today's call, we will discuss non-GAAP financial measures, which we believe can be useful in evaluating the company's financial performance. These measures should not be considered in isolation or as a substitute for our financial results prepared in accordance with GAAP. A reconciliation of these measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures is available in our earnings release and our investor presentation on the HL.com website. Hosting the call today, we have Scott Adelson, Houlihan Loki's Chief Executive Officer, and Lindsey Alley, Chief Financial Officer. They will provide some opening remarks, and then we will open the call to questions. With that, I'll turn the call over to Scott.

Thank you, Christopher. Welcome, everyone, to our third quarter fiscal 2025 earnings call. We ended the quarter with revenues of $634 million and adjusted earnings per share of $1.64. Revenues were up 24% and adjusted earnings per share were up 34% compared to the same period last year. We are all pleased with our results for the quarter, as well as with our performance year to date, and we have entered our last fiscal quarter with continued momentum across all three of our business lines. Corporate finance and financial valuation advisory continue to benefit from improvements in the M&A and financing markets, while financial restructuring had another solid quarter as it continues to benefit from record leverage and persistently higher interest rates. We remain optimistic about the balance of this fiscal year, as we believe the markets will continue to improve given a stronger macro environment. interest rates and inflation appear stable, and the results of the U.S. election have improved confidence. Looking at each of our segments, corporate finance produced $422 million of revenue for the quarter, representing a 36% increase over last year's third quarter. Key metrics for our corporate finance business, including close rates, time to close transactions, New business generation and transaction volume continue to improve when compared with the same period last year. Growth in our corporate finance business is widespread, occurring across geographies, industries, and driven by both strategic and private equity clients. Financial restructuring produced 131 million of revenue for the third quarter, a 2% increase versus the same period last year. During the quarter, we continue to generate enough new business to maintain our backlog and provide us with continued confidence that this restructuring market will remain elevated for longer than we anticipated a year ago. Financial and valuation advisory produced 82 million of revenue for the third quarter, a 14% increase versus the third quarter last year, an important result of the improving M&A climate. FBA saw strength across both its cyclical and non-cyclical businesses, and many of the same factors affecting the optimism for our corporate finance business are present in our FBA business as well. Regarding acquisitions, we closed our acquisition of Waller Helms in early December, and our new partners are off to a strong start, contributing to our results. We added 17 new managing directors in the quarter, 14 through acquisitions, and three through individual hires. As we look beyond our fiscal fourth quarter, our outlook for fiscal 2026 is positive. Improving M&A market sentiment, an increase in private equity activity, and continued strength in our restructuring business are all encouraging indicators for continued growth. With that, I will turn the call over to Lindsey.