PJT Partners Inc.

Good day and welcome to the PJT Partners second quarter 2022 earnings call. Today's conference is being recorded. At this time, I'd like to turn the conference over to Sharon Pearson, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, ma'am.

Thank you very much. Good morning and welcome to the PJT Partners second quarter 2022 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 Mates, 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 clearly from those indicated in these statements. We believe that these factors are described in the risk factors section contained in PJT Partners 2021 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, which we believe are meaningful in evaluating the company's performance. The 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, and thank all of you for joining us this morning. Before we turn to our results, I wanted to provide some context on the broader operating environment. As the year has progressed, The macro environment has grown more challenging. A steady stream of negative news flow and building recessionary fears continue to weigh on market sentiment. This uncertainty has pressured debt, equity, and M&A markets across the board. While we always expected M&A markets to cool in 2022, this slowdown in activity is greater than we previously forecasted. As M&A activity cools, restructuring activity is set up. In market environments such as these, our firm is set to outgrow. Our unique combination of businesses combined with the ongoing strategic advisory build-out helps insulate us from market dislocations. This resiliency in challenging markets is reflected in our record six-month revenues. We have often said that a slower M&A environment benefits us from a recruiting perspective, particularly at the senior level where bankers have more bandwidth to engage and switching costs are lower. In this environment, the pace of our senior hiring has picked up. And while our overall near-term growth in headcount is likely to moderate, we expect this pace of senior hiring to continue. Helen will now review our financial results.