Lazard LTD.

We stand by. We're about to begin. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Lazard's first quarter 2025 earnings conference call. This call is being recorded. Currently, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Following the remarks, we will conduct a question and answer session. Instructions will be provided at that time. If anyone should require assistance during the call today, please press star key followed by zero on your telephone keypad. At this time, I will now turn the conference over to Alexandra Degnan, Lazard's Head of Investor Relations and Treasury. Please go ahead, ma'am.

Alexandra Degnan Thank you, Bill. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Lazard's earnings call for the first quarter of 2025. I'm Alexandra Degnan, Head of Investor Relations and Treasury. In addition to today's audio comments, we've posted our earnings release on our website. A replay of this call will also be available on our website later today. Before we begin, let me remind you that we may make forward-looking statements about our business and performance. There are important factors that could cause our actual results, level of activity, performance, achievements, or other events to differ materially from those expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements, including but not limited to those factors discussed in the company's SEC filings, which you can access on our website. Lazard assumes no responsibility for the accuracy or completeness of these forward-looking statements and assumes no duty to update them. Today's discussion also includes certain non-GAAP financial measures that we believe are meaningful when evaluating the company's performance. Reconciliation of these non-GAAP financial measures to be comparable GAAP measures is provided in our earnings release and investor presentation. Taking our call today are Peter Orszag, Lazard's Chief Executive Officer and Chairman, and Marianne Zetsch, Lazard's Chief Financial Officer. After our prepared remarks, Peter and Marianne will be joined by Evan Russo, Chief Executive Officer of Asset Management, as they open up the call for questions. I'll now turn the call over to Peter.

Thank you, Allie, and thank you to everyone for joining our call. First quarter performance was solid, with results supported by a high degree of client engagement across the firm, along with our diversified business model. In financial advisory, our global market share of announced transactions increased year over year, as the momentum behind our long-term strategy continues to grow. Over the past 12 months, revenue associated with private capital was over 40% of total financial advisory revenue, just above our prior peak in 2021. This reflects strong market activity and our successful expansion of coverage in this area. In asset management, we saw substantial improvements in our flows for the first quarter compared to last year. Inflows were driven by large wins in our strategic focus areas, including our quantitative platform, Japanese equities, global equities, and international quality. Even with increased growth inflows during the quarter, our won-but-not-yet-funded mandates are even higher than at the beginning of the year, as sales and distribution efforts have successfully generated new business. During the quarter, we continued to execute our Lazard 2030 long-term strategy. We announced a strategic alliance with Arini Capital Management, expanding Lazard's connectivity to private capital across Europe. This partnership creates opportunities across both of our businesses by providing clients access to flexible financing solutions and unique investment strategies. We also announced our expansion in the Middle East, opening a financial advisory office in Abu Dhabi. This office builds on our successful business in Saudi Arabia and complements our presence in Dubai. Finally, last month we launched our first active ETF product set in the U.S., The introduction of our Japanese equity, equity megatrends, and next-gen technologies ETFs further expands our capability to meet investor preferences and demand. Looking ahead, while there is substantial unpredictability due to shifting trade policies, corporate balance sheets remain strong, and the preconditions for ongoing economic growth and MA activity are present. This includes the underlying tailwinds for financial advisory activity with client opportunity driven by technology and generative AI, the biotech revolution, ongoing expansion in energy demand, and efforts to de-risk and reposition supply chains. Over the past month, and even with the overhang of heightened uncertainty, our backlog in financial advisory has continued to grow, driven by activity in Europe and in restructuring, along with continued growth in M&A and financing and capital solutions. Whether this pattern continues and how this backlog evolves in the future will depend, in part, on greater certainty regarding tariffs. Overall, client engagement across both of our businesses remains robust. Let me now turn the call over to Mary Ann to discuss our financial results.