Houlihan Lokey, Inc.

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to Houlihan Lokey's second quarter fiscal year 2027 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. Please note that this conference call is being recorded today, October 28, 2026. I will now turn the call over to the company.

Thank you, operator, and hello, everyone. By now, everyone should have access to our second quarter fiscal year 2027 earnings release, which can be found on the Houlihan Lokey website at www.hl.com in the investor relations section. Please note that the discussion today will include forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements, which are usually identified by use of words such as indicate, suggest, see, will, Expect, believe, or other words or phrases of similar meaning 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 you to our recent SEC filings for a more detailed discussion of the risks Thank you for joining us today. During today's call, we will discuss non-GAAP financial measures. These non-GAAP measures are not intended to be considered in isolation from, as a substitute for, or as more important than, the financial information prepared and presented in accordance with GAAP. In addition, these non-GAAP measures have limitations in that they do not reflect all the items associated with a company's results of operations as determined 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, which can be found on the HL.com website. Posting the call today, we have Scott Adelson, Willihan Lokey'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, Sippy. Welcome, everyone, to our second quarter fiscal 2027 earnings call. We ended the quarter with revenues of $692 million and adjusted earnings per share of $1.85. Revenues were up 5% and adjusted earnings per share were flat compared to the same period last year. Our results for the quarter reflect a normalizing market environment which continued into October. Key metrics indicate solid performance for the remainder of the year across all three of our businesses, and we have seen a return to growth in both Europe and the U.S. and across our industry groups, except technology and healthcare. We do, however, remain cautious given the volatility of the macro environment. We continue to see headwinds from interest rates, ongoing geopolitical instability, and dislocation in the software sector. Our corporate finance business produced $481 million in revenue for the quarter, driven by higher average transaction fees. Heading into the third quarter, our backlog and activity levels suggest growth for the balance of the year, even as we remain mindful of the macro volatility. Despite the higher interest rate environment of the last few months, transactions continued move through the pipeline to closing. which tells us that the stronger economic fundamentals are outweighing macro uncertainty. Financial restructuring produced 118 million in revenues for the second quarter, performing in line with our expectations. Based on our current backlog and new deal activity levels over the last several months, we see a stronger second half of the year and elevated restructuring revenues through fiscal 2028. Our reputation and experience in the software space has led to significant wins in the sector, and we expect these engagements to begin contributing to revenues in calendar 27. Financial valuation and advisory produced $93 million of revenues for the second quarter. Growth was primarily driven by our portfolio valuation business. We added 12 new managing directors in the second quarter, including eight who joined us through our acquisition of Intrepid Financial Partners, which closed in September. We're excited to welcome our new partners to Houlihan Lokey. Also in the second quarter, we welcome our new chief legal officer, Sipi Bhandari, who you heard from earlier on the call. We are all delighted to have Sipi on board. I would like to extend my sincere gratitude to Christopher Crain, who served as our general counsel and a member of our executive team for 22 years and who fortunately will remain a senior advisor. In terms of acquisitions, our pipeline remains strong, and we are confident that our combination of organic growth and strategic acquisitions will continue to deepen and expand and strengthen our talent base around the world. I want to thank our shareholders for their support, especially during the volatile first half of the fiscal year. We continue to execute our long-term business plan and believe that we are the best positioned investment banking advisory firm to capitalize on our industry trends over the next decade. With that, I'll turn it over to Lindsey.