Houlihan Lokey, Inc.

Good day, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Houlihan-Lowkey's third quarter fiscal year 2026 earnings

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 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 December 31, 2025, 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. In reconciliation of these measures, to the most directly comparable gap 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 2026 earnings call. We ended the quarter with revenues of $717 million and adjusted earnings per share of $1.94. Revenues were up 13% and adjusted earnings per share were up 18% compared to the same period last year. We are pleased with our results for the quarter as well as our performance year to date. We continue to benefit from improving investor sentiment. partially fueled by stronger company performance and expectations of declining interest rates, both of which should continue to further the M&A recovery. As a result, private equity activity has accelerated with an increasing number of portfolio companies choosing to explore liquidity. Looking at each of our businesses, corporate finance produced $474 million of revenue for the quarter. representing a 12% increase over last year's third quarter. Both average fee and new business activity continue to move upward. We enter our last fiscal quarter with positive inflection in the activity levels that increase our optimism for our fiscal year 2027. While we have anticipated and reported consistent progress in corporate finance throughout the year, Our current visibility into both deal activity and backlog gives us more confidence in fiscal 2027 compared to our assessment a quarter ago. Financial restructuring produced 156 million of revenue for the third quarter, a 19% increase versus the same period last year. We performed better than anticipated during the quarter due to accelerated transaction timelines that moved several of our deals forward into the third quarter. Accordingly, we expect our third quarter restructuring results to be stronger than our fourth quarter results, reversing our typical seasonal pattern. Looking ahead to fiscal 2027, we expect restructuring to face some revenue pressures as it adjusts to an improving market environment. That said, recent geopolitical events introduced a new variable that could potentially drive restructuring activity levels higher. Financial and valuation advisory produced 87 million of revenue for the third quarter, a 6% increase versus the third quarter last year. Like corporate finance, this business continues to benefit from an improving M&A climate and continued strong capital markets. with solid new business generation heading into our fourth quarter. We hired six new managing directors in the third quarter, and in early January, we closed the acquisition of the real estate advisory business of Mellon Capital, bolstering our capital solutions capabilities. We gained 11 new colleagues between Munich and London, and our new partners are off to a great start. In addition, last week, we announced an agreement for a controlling interest in Odair Partners, a prominent French corporate finance firm. The deal will significantly enhance our footprint in France to around 80 colleagues, making it one of our largest offices in Europe. This transaction is expected to close in our fourth quarter. We are thrilled with these transactions, which reflect our commitment to build our capabilities in the right places at the right time, and most importantly, with the right partners. Our culture grows even stronger when we welcome new colleagues with the same vision and commitment to our client's success. These two deals continue to strengthen our business in Europe, which, as we have said before, has the potential to be the size of our U.S. corporate finance business. Finally, as we look back at 2025, we are honored once again to be the number one most active M&A investment bank in the world and also, once again, the number one most active financial restructuring investment bank in the world. We congratulate our colleagues around the globe for the dedication that produced these distinctions. As we look beyond our fiscal fourth quarter, our outlook for the future is positive. The expansion of our workforce across geography, industry, and product will continue. Our relentless focus on independent, high-quality advice to our clients will continue. And our drive to create value for our shareholders will continue. We thank our employees for their commitment and our shareholders for their support. And with that, I will turn it over to Lindsey.