Moelis & Company

Good afternoon, and welcome to the Molison Company earnings conference call for the third quarter of 2021. All participants will be in listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. Please note, this event is being recorded. To begin, I'll turn the call over to Mr. Chet Mandel, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us for Mollis & Company's third quarter 2021 financial results conference call. On the phone today are Ken Mollis, Chairman and CEO, and Joe Simon, Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin, I'd like to note that the remarks made on this call may contain certain forward-looking statements, which are subject to various risks and uncertainties, including those identified from time to time in the risk factor section of Mollis & Company's filings with the SEC. Actual results could differ materially from those currently anticipated. the firm undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements. Our comments today include references to certain adjusted financial measures. We believe these measures, when presented together with comparable GAAP measures, are useful to investors to compare our results across several periods and to better understand our operating results. The reconciliation of these adjusted financial measures with the relevant GAAP financial information and other information required by Reg G is provided in the firm's earnings release. which can be found on our investor relations website at investors.molis.com. I will now turn the call over to Joe to discuss our results. Joe?

Thanks, Chet, and good afternoon, everyone. On today's call, I'll go through our financial results, and then Ken will comment further on the business. We achieved $516 million of adjusted revenues in the third quarter, an increase of nearly 150% over the prior year. This represents our largest quarter of revenues ever. Our robust growth during the third quarter was primarily attributable to high levels of transaction completions, with particular strength coming from both our sell-side and buy-side M&A activity. In addition, our restructuring and capital markets were strong contributors, as our model truly has three powerful revenue engines. Our nine-month total revenues of $1.1 billion are up 119% from the prior year period. Our adjusted revenues include gains from the sale of MOLUS Australia shares as well as gains on the firm's investment in our affiliated SPAC entity, Atlas Crest One. These revenues were reclassified from GAAP Other Income because our employees and the MOLUS platform were instrumental in creating the related value. Moving to expenses, our compensation expense was accrued at 59.3%, consistent with prior periods. Our third quarter non-comp expenses were 31 million, resulting in a non-comp ratio of 6%. Through focused expense discipline, In an outstanding revenue quarter, we achieved a 35% pre-tax margin, which is our highest quarterly pre-tax margin in history. Moving to taxes, our underlying corporate tax rate was 26% for the third quarter. Regarding capital allocation, as always, we remain committed to returning 100% of our excess capital. Consistent with that philosophy, our board declared a $2.50 per share special dividend in addition to the regular dividend of 60 cents per share. This is our third special dividend declared within the last 12-month period and highlights the business's powerful earnings and cash generation capabilities. And lastly, we continue to maintain a fortress balance sheet with no funded debt. I'll now turn the call over to Ken.