PJT Partners Inc.

Ladies and gentlemen, please stand by. Good day and welcome to the PJT Partners second quarter 2020 earnings call. Today's conference is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Sharon Pearson, Head of Investor Relations. Please proceed.

Good morning and thank you very much, Jake, and welcome to the PJT Partners second quarter 2020 earnings conference call. I'm Sharon Pearson, Head of Investor Relations at PJT Partners. Joining me today is Paul Taubman, our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, and Helen Meates, our Chief Financial Officer. Before I turn the call over to Paul, I want to point out that during the course of this conference call, we may make a number of forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties, and there are important factors that could cause actual outcomes to differ materially from those indicated in these statements. We believe that these factors are described in the risk factors section contained in PJT Partners 2019 Form 10-K, which is available on our website at pjtpartners.com. I want to remind you that the company assumes no duty to update any forward-looking statements and that the presentation we make today contains non-GAAP financial measures For detailed disclosures on these non-GAAP metrics and their GAAP reconciliations, you should refer to the financial data contained within the press release we issued this morning, also available on our website. And with that, I'll turn the call over to Paul.

Thank you, Sharon. Good morning, and thank you all for joining us today. Since the start of our firm, we have consistently spoken about an unwavering commitment to building our business through sustained, strategic, and value-added investment. This quarter's strong financial performance resulted, in part, from this continuous investment. In the second quarter, firm-wide revenues grew 40% to $233 million, Thank you for joining us. Adjusted pre-tax income grew 119%, and adjusted earnings per share grew 118% from a year ago. We have responded to these extraordinary times by seamlessly reorienting the way we conduct our business. The transition to a remote work environment has been greatly facilitated by our culture of teamwork, collaboration, and creativity. as well as a shared sense of purpose. And we have worked diligently to enhance this environment through extensive employee engagement, ongoing training, and wellness initiatives. During this remote period, we have also continued to recruit and onboard talented individuals at all levels, including a new full-time class of analysts and associates, and have welcomed summer interns from undergraduate and graduate programs around the world. On the business front, while M&A activity has slowed considerably, we have used this time to broaden and deepen our relationships with both existing and new clients, ensuring they continue to receive the highest quality advice and insights. While none of us can predict the depth, breadth, and duration of this crisis, we are confident that when this period passes, we will emerge a stronger firm. Now, turning to each of our businesses in a bit more detail. Turning to restructuring. Our world-class restructuring franchise maintained its leadership position in the first six months of 2020, ranking number one globally in completed restructuring volumes and number two in announced restructuring volumes. The pandemic and the corresponding economic shutdown have caused a dramatic spike in global restructuring activity. As a result, our market-leading restructuring team has seen a significant increase in the level of its restructuring activity. While our restructuring results reflect some financial uplift from these higher levels of distress across industries, this second quarter financial performance principally reflects the momentum in our restructuring business heading into the year. We expect elevated restructuring activity to persist for a considerable period of time as the economic dislocations caused by this global health crisis Impact an increasing number of companies. Turning to PJT Park Hill. While the macroeconomic backdrop has benefited our restructuring business, it has also caused a significant slowdown in PJT Park Hill's fundraising activity. In PJT Park Hill, revenues declined meaningfully in the quarter versus year-ago levels. Notwithstanding the dislocated fundraising environment, PJT Park Hill was able to successfully close a number of fundraisers in the quarter. Similar to our April comments, we continue to expect PJT Park Hill's revenues to be down significantly in 2020. However, we expect the business to return to its pre-COVID growth trajectory when market valuation stabilizes and on-site due diligence between managers and investors is able to resume. Turning to strategic advisory. In strategic advisory, we enjoyed record results for the quarter and the six-month period. Our financial results increasingly reflect the investments we have made to increase our footprint and capabilities. The strength in our business this quarter was broad-based across M&A, capital markets, liability management, shareholder engagement, and strategic IR. Our number of active mandates continues to grow substantially. However, given we are operating in a challenging environment for transaction activity, it is uncertain how many of these mandates will lead to announced transactions and if and when these transactions will be completed and reflected in our financial results. Before I turn the call over to Helen to review our results, please allow me to welcome our newest board member, Grace Rexton Skaugen. Grace has been a leader in the international business community for many years and has served on the boards of some of the largest and most consequential European companies. She has extensive public company experience, deep corporate governance expertise, and we are honored to have her join our board. Helen?