Houlihan Lokey, Inc.

Good day, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Houlihan Loki Fiscal First Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. The question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. Please note that this conference call is being recorded today, 29th of July, 2025. I will now turn the call over to the company. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Operator, and hello, everyone. By now, everyone should have access to our first quarter fiscal year 2026 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 for 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 on 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 June 30th, 2025, when it is filed with the SEC. During today's call, we will discuss non-GAAP financial measures, 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 edshell.com website. Hosting the call today We have Scott Adelton, Houlihan Loki's Chief Executive Officer, and Lindsay Alley, Chief Financial Officer. They will provide some opening remarks, and then we will open the line to questions. With that, I'll turn the call over to Scott.

Thank you, Christopher. Welcome, everyone, to our first quarter fiscal year 2026 earnings call. We ended the quarter with revenues of $605 million and adjusted earnings per share of $2.14. Revenues were up 18% and adjusted earnings per share were up 75% compared to the same quarter last year. We began fiscal 2026 with momentum and concluded the quarter with solid performance by all three of our business lines. Our views of current market conditions and our business are broadly consistent with what we shared last quarter. While market forecasts remain difficult, given a dynamic and volatile macro environment, we continue to see the benefits of our diversified business model, particularly across industry and geography. The markets in which we operate are showing resilience, adapting to the complexities and uncertainties of the current environment. Turning to our results, corporate finance produced $399 million of revenue in the first quarter, a 21% increase over last year's first quarter. Key metrics for our corporate finance business, including transaction size and average fee per transaction, continued to see steady improvement. This was achieved despite muted activity from the financial sponsor community, understoring the strength of our business which we believe should pick up as sponsor activity eventually returns to more historic levels. We are cautiously optimistic that this momentum will continue through fiscal 2026 while we remain mindful of the potential headwinds, including tariffs and inflation. Our financial restructuring business produced 128 million in revenues for the first quarter, a 9% increase over last year's first quarter. Financial restructuring activity remains elevated, supported by persistently higher interest rates, macro uncertainty, and over leveraged companies. Revenues in financial restructuring are diversified across industry and geography, and we are experiencing a balanced mix of debtor and creditor work. We expect to continue to see elevated restructuring revenues throughout fiscal 2026. Financial and valuation advisory produced 79 million in revenues for the first quarter, a 16% increase versus the first quarter last year. FBA had a very strong first quarter with continued growth in its noncyclical service lines. while its pro-cyclical businesses benefited from improving M&A market conditions, particularly in the U.S. Our outlook for FEA is similar to our outlook for CF, as we expect to see continued year-over-year growth throughout the remainder of the fiscal year. In the first quarter, we hired three new managing directors, and we continue to see a strong hiring market for senior talent. drawn to our global platform and track record of growth. Our pipeline of acquisition opportunities remains robust, and we are confident that the combination of our organic hires and strategic acquisitions will continue to help us expand our workforce across industry, service line, and geography. On the marketing front, I'm very proud to announce that we hosted the inaugural Houlihan Loki One Conference in New York, dubbed the Woodstock of Dealmaking by Bloomberg. This major event showcased our one firm approach and global scope, with more than 4,000 people in attendance and approximately 400 companies participating. We are thrilled with the feedback we received from clients who attended, and we're proud of the experience that we are curating for our clients and prospects around the world. We remain confident in our outlook for our fiscal year 2026. Despite volatility in global markets, companies appear to be adapting to the realities of decision-making in this environment. With our global reach, sector depth, and balanced business model, We continue to be well-positioned to help our clients navigate the environment and capitalize on new opportunities. Lindsay, over to you.