PJT Partners Inc.

and welcome to the PJT Partners Second Quarter 2023 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 go ahead, ma'am. Thank you very much.

Good morning and welcome to the PJT Partners Second Quarter 2023 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 materially from those indicated in these statements. We believe that these factors are described in the risk factors section contained in PJT Partners 2022 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. 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, which is also available on our website. And with that, I'll turn the call over to Paul.

Thank you, Sharon. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. As our results indicate, our firm delivered stellar revenue performance for the three- and six-month periods, notwithstanding a very challenging backdrop. Second quarter revenue of $346 million was up 49% year over year and is the highest in our firm's history. This record-setting result was driven by extraordinary performance in our restructuring business combined with strong relative performance in strategic advisory. For the six months, firm-wide revenues increased 14% to $546 million, compared to the prior year. While the market tone has improved significantly from three months ago, M&A announcements remain at anemic levels, with annualized deal volumes tracking to levels that haven't been this low in more than a decade. Even though our strategic advisory performance has been hampered by the lackluster M&A environment, there is a silver lining. This subdued M&A backdrop has enabled us to considerably step up the pace of senior hiring. We've always talked about the difficulties in hiring during periods of frenetic M&A activity. So it is not a coincidence that the spike up in our talent investments has occurred during a very significant two-year downturn in overall M&A. While it has stepped up investment at the lows of market activity, is pressuring our near-term pre-tax margins, it is consistent with our focus on creating sustainable long-term value for our shareholders. We are confident that this investment will prove to be highly accretive over time. After Helen takes you through our financial results, I will review our business performance, recruiting activity, and outlook in greater detail. Ellen?