Earnings Call Transcript - EVR Q4 FY2024

Speaker 6

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Operator

Sights on hold. The program will begin momentarily. If you should require operator assistance during your conference today, please press star zero. And welcome to the Evercore fourth quarter 2024 and full year earnings conference call. Today's call is scheduled to last about one hour, including remarks by Evercore Management and the question and answer session. In order to ask a question, please press the star key followed by the number one on your touchtone phone at any time. I will now turn to Katie Haber, Managing Director of Investor Relations in ESG Evercore. Please go ahead.

Katy Haber, Head of Investor Relations

Thank you, Operator. Good morning and thank you for joining us today for Evercore's fourth quarter in full year 2024 financial results conference call. I'm Katie Haber, Evercore's Head of Invest Relations and ESG. Joining me on the call today is John Weinberg, our Chairman and CEO, and Tim Lalonde, our CFO. After our prepared remarks, we will open the call for questions. Earlier today, we issued a press release announcing Evercore's fourth quarter and full year 2024 financial results. Our discussion of our results today is complimentary to the press release, which is available on our website at evercore.com. This conference call is being webcast live in the four investor section of our website, and an archive of it will be available for 30 days beginning approximately one hour after the conclusion of this call. During the course of this conference call, we may make a number of forward-looking statements. Any forward-looking statements that we make 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. These factors include, but are not limited to, those discussed in Evercourse filings with the SEC, including our annual report on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, and current reports on Form 8-K. I want to remind you that the company assumes no duty to update any forward-looking statements. In our presentation today, unless otherwise indicated, we will be discussing adjusted financial measures, which are non-GAAP measures that we believe are meaningful when evaluating the company's performance. For detailed disclosures on these measures and the GAAP reconciliations, you should refer to the financial data contained within our press release, which is posted on our website. We continue to believe that it is important to evaluate Evercore's performance on an annual basis. As we have noted previously, our results for any particular quarter are influenced by the timing of transaction closing.

John Weinberg, Chairman

I will now turn the call over to John. Thank you, Katie, and good morning, everyone. 2024 marked a year of significant improvement across both the macroeconomic landscape and the broader capital markets. We saw strengths across all of our businesses, and as a result, 2024 was Evercore's second-best year ever for revenue, with firm-wide adjusted net revenues of just over $3 billion. In the year, we also advised on three of the seven largest global M&A deals and continued to gain market share in terms of advisory fees. We have continued to intensively cover our clients while broadening our coverage across the entire platform. Over the past several years, we have meaningfully invested in the business, and we continue to broaden and deepen our products and capabilities. This has contributed to a significant diversification in our total revenue base. On average, over the past five years and in 2024, more than 40% of our total revenues were from non-M&A sources. We are pleased with the progress we've made in the past year. As we enter 2025, we are optimistic. Market trends continue to improve with increased CEO confidence levels, healthy sponsor dialogue activity, continued financing availability, and overall a strong macroeconomic backdrop. Our robust backlogs continue to strengthen, positioning us for what we believe will be a healthy environment in our advisory and capital markets businesses. While some geopolitical and macroeconomic uncertainties persist, we anticipate the deal-making environment will continue to gradually improve throughout the year, building on the momentum of the past 12 months. So far this year, we were lead financial advisor to Calpine on its sale to Constellation Energy for $29.1 billion, the largest announced deal to date. These activity levels reflect our strong client relationships, ongoing coverage for efforts, and building client dialogues. Shifting to talent, 2024 was another successful recruiting year for Evercore, marking our second largest class of investment banking senior managing director new hires. For the year, nine investment banking SMDs and one senior advisor have started or committed to join the firm. Since our last earnings call, one SMD committed to join our healthcare coverage team and will be starting later this year. We have a strong pipeline of external recruits, and we are continuing to add and promote high-quality senior talent to our firm. We're excited to begin 2025 with 11 newly promoted SMDs in our global investment banking business across sectors and capabilities. Over the past three years, we've recruited nearly 30 SMDs and senior advisors externally and promoted more than 30 SMDs internally for a total of approximately 60 new senior bankers on our platform. Attracting and developing the highest quality talent has always been a core priority for us, and we believe this remains one of the most vital aspects for future growth and our competitive positioning. Now, let me briefly discuss the key highlights from the quarter and year. Overall, Evercore had its strongest quarter for revenue since the fourth quarter of 2021 and experienced a continuation of the momentum that we've been building throughout the year. In strategic advisory, we continue to observe a strengthening environment, And we've advised on a number of notable and complex transactions, including Summit Materials on its sale to Quickrete for $11.5 billion, Warner Brothers Discovery on its new corporate structure, highlighting extensive collaboration across several teams throughout the firm, Vivendi on the partial demergers of Canal Plou and Louis Ache, and spinoff of Avast representing a notable deal for our newly established team in Paris. The European advisory business continued to see momentum build in the fourth quarter and finished the year with a strong backlog for 2025. There are some signs that market trends and sentiment in Europe are improving. However, they lag those in the United States. While industry-wide sponsor activity continues to gradually build, our financial sponsors team experienced increasing levels of client dialogues into year-end and so far this year. Whether related to M&A, continuation funds, equity underwriting, liability management, or private capital markets, we believe we are well positioned to serve our sponsor clients as activity levels continue to build in 2025. We continue to invest in our financial sponsors team, and we're excited for what this expanded group will accomplish over time. Our strategic defense and shareholder advisory business had a strong finish to the year, having advised on some of the largest activist defenses in 2024. Global activist campaigns remain elevated, and we expect these heightened activity levels to continue. Liability management and restructuring had an exceptional year, with liability management among sponsor clients continuing to be a primary driver of activity. We believe our firm's extensive expertise and integrated approach to advising clients will drive continued success. Our industry-leading private capital advisory and private funds group both achieved record years. In PCA, we observed strong performance across both GP and LP businesses. Driven by record volumes, we are starting 2025 with a strong pipeline. Additionally, our structured capital solutions business is building in momentum as we head into 2025. In PFG, the fundraising environment has improved marginally, and we expect similar trends to continue as sponsor and broader M&A activity increases. Activity for this group continues to broaden as we add new clients. The underwriting business had a stronger year as equity issuance activity bounced back in 2024, particularly among follow-ons. We continue to elevate our role and increase our share of deal economics. Diversifying our ECM sector exposure beyond healthcare has been one of our primary strategic objectives in recent years. In 2024, over 50% of our underwriting revenue came from other sectors with significant contribution from energy, tech, and financials. We were a book runner on nearly all of our ECM transactions in the year, and we were pleased to be left lead on six of them, reflecting continued progress. Notably, we were left lead bookrunner on Diamondback Energy's $2.6 billion follow-on, which was the largest E&P follow-on in history. We and the market anticipate 2025 will be a stronger year for ECM industry-wide, particularly the IPO market. Our equities franchise had its best year since 2016 with broad-based strengths across our research and execution products. For the third consecutive year, our research team was recognized as the number one firm on a weighted basis by Extel, formerly known as Institutional Investor. Additionally, we had the most number one ranked analysts on Wall Street for the second year in a row. This is an extraordinary achievement, and we are very proud of our team. Lastly, in wealth management, we ended the year with record revenues and assets under management of $13.9 billion. Our client engagement levels remain strong, and we are focused on supporting our clients through all market conditions. Before I turn it over to Tim to discuss the financial results, I want to wrap up with a few points. Looking ahead we are optimistic for both the market and our business. We believe we are still in the early stages of recovery and expect it to gradually build throughout 2025 and beyond. We have an exceptionally strong team of senior bankers in the industry with 144 investment banking senior managing directors which does not include our most recent promotion class and it's over 25% more SMDs than in the end of 2021. We believe we are better positioned today than at any time in our history for what lies ahead. We remain committed to executing our growth strategy with a focus on continuing to improve our expense margins and enhance shareholder value over time. With that, let me turn it over to Tim.

Tim LaLonde, CFO

Thank you, John. Our fourth quarter and full year financial results reflect the building momentum we experienced in 2024, with net revenues higher each quarter, both sequentially and year-over-year. As the market environment continues on its path to recovery, we remain committed to strategically investing in our growth and balancing that with responsible expense management and medium-to-long-term value creation for our shareholders. In 2024, we made meaningful progress on our adjusted comp and non-comp expense ratios, improving them by 190 basis points and more than 90 basis points, respectively. This has resulted in a 280 basis point improvement in our adjusted operating margin versus 2023. As I have discussed throughout the past year, we are focused on making further improvement on our margins, and we expect this to occur gradually over the near to medium term. With that, I will now discuss our fourth quarter and full year financial results. For the fourth quarter of 2024, net revenues, operating income, and EPS on a gap basis were $975 million, $213 million, and $3.30 per share, respectively. For the full year, net revenues, operating income, and EPS on a GAAP basis were $3 billion, $527 million, and $9.08 per share, respectively. My comments from here will focus on non-GAAP metrics, which we believe are useful when evaluating our results. Our standard GAAP reporting and a reconciliation of GAAP to adjusted results can be found in our press release, which is on our website. Fourth quarter adjusted net revenues of $981 million increased 24% versus the fourth quarter of 2023. On a full year basis, adjusted net revenues of 3 billion increased 23% compared to last year. Fourth quarter adjusted operating income of $218 million increased 76% compared to the fourth quarter of 2023. Adjusted earnings per share of $3.41 increased 69% versus the fourth quarter last year. For the full year, adjusted operating income of $557 million increased 45 percent and adjusted earnings per share of $9.42 increased 46 percent versus the full year 2023. Our adjusted operating margin was 22.2 percent for the fourth quarter, up 650 basis points versus the fourth quarter of 2023, and the full-year adjusted operating margin was 18.6%, and as I mentioned earlier, up 280 basis points versus the 2023 full-year result. Turning to the businesses, fourth quarter adjusted advisory fees of $850 million increased 29% year-over-year, representing our second strongest quarter on record. Adjusted advisory fees were $2.4 billion for the full year, up 24% compared to 2023, and our strongest year behind 2021. Our estimates, we increased our market share again this year and further closed the gap between us and the largest investment banks. Our fourth quarter underwriting fees were $26 million, up 38% from a year ago. For the full year, underwriting revenues were $157 million, up 41% versus last year, reflecting improved market conditions and the investments we have made in this business. Commissions and related revenue of $58 million in the fourth quarter was up 4% year-over-year. For the full year, commissions and related revenue of $214 million were up 6% compared to 2023, representing our best result since 2016. Fourth quarter and full year adjusted asset management and administration fees of $22 $2 million and $85 million, respectively, both increased 16% versus the prior year period. Fourth quarter adjusted other revenue net was approximately $24 million, which compares to $37 million a year ago. For the full year, adjusted other revenue net was $105 million compared to $98 million last year. Approximately 70% of the other revenue in 2024 was interest income, and about 30% was a gain on our DCCP hedge. Turning to expenses, the adjusted compensation ratio for the fourth quarter was 65.2%, 560 basis points below last year's fourth quarter. Our full-year adjusted compensation ratio was 65.7%, 190 basis points lower than in 2023. We are pleased with the improvement we made in 2024, but not satisfied, and we are working hard to make additional progress over the near to medium term. However, as we remain focused on investing in the growth of our firm, progress will continue to be gradual. As a reminder, each of the past two years were years of significant investment in building out our SMD ranks with top quality talent. And we are balancing strategic investment in our business with expense management with the objective of providing first-rate advice and execution to our clients while maximizing overall value creation for our shareholders. Shifting to non-compensation expenses. Fourth quarter and full-year expenses were $123 million and $471 million, respectively, both up 16% from the relevant prior year period. The increases in our full-year non-compensation expenses were primarily driven by revenue and activity-related costs. First, an increase in professional fees related to higher client-related expenses and search and placement fees. The combination of revenues up 23% and strong SMD hiring contributed to this. Second, travel and travel-related expenses were up 23% year-over-year and the number of trips up 19%. This is also correlated with stronger business and higher revenue levels. As a reminder, the recovery of client reimbursable expenses is reflected in the revenue line and is not netted against non-comp expenses. On a per-employee basis, our fourth quarter non-comp expenses are about 7% higher than the year-ago fourth quarter, and only about 1% higher than they were in the fourth quarter of 2019, the pre-COVID year. We have improved our non-comp ratio consistently each quarter this year, ending with a full-year adjusted ratio of 15.7%. This compares favorably to our pre-COVID non-comp expense ratio levels, consistent with our commentary earlier this year. Our adjusted tax rate for the quarter was 27.3 percent, down from 28.9 percent last quarter, and up from 25.3 percent in the fourth quarter of last year. The full year adjusted tax rate was 21.8% versus 23.4% last year, largely due to tax benefits related to the appreciation in the share price upon vesting of RSU grants. Turning to our balance sheet, as of December 31st, our cash and investment securities totaled $2.4 billion, which is about $350 million higher than last year's levels at year end. In 2024, we returned a total of $591 million to shareholders through dividends and repurchases of 2.3 million shares at an average price of $193.40. Our fourth quarter diluted share count increased a little over 1% from the third quarter to $45 million. For the full year, our share count is up 1.3 million shares versus the year prior, primarily due to the impact of our higher share price on unvested awards, which are accounted for under the Treasury stock method. We remain committed to repurchasing shares to offset dilution from our RSU year-end bonus grants, and in fact, in each of the past four years, we have repurchased a number of shares greater than that, and we would expect to do so again in 2025. We are pleased with our performance in 2024, and we believe we are well positioned to continue delivering strong results in the coming year and beyond. We expect this to be supported by an improving market environment and investments we have made in our business, which we believe will benefit our clients, our shareholders, and our firm. With that, we will now open the line for questions.

Operator

Thank you. We will now conduct the question and answer portion of the conference. Please limit to one question only. You are welcome to rejoin the queue for additional questions, time permitting. Again, in order to ask a question, please press the star key followed by one on your touchtone phone. Our first question is from Mike Brown with Wells Fargo Securities. Please go ahead.

Mike Brown, Analyst — Wells Fargo Securities

Okay, great. Thanks for taking my question. So, Tim, I wanted to maybe start with a question on the comp ratio. So, as you noted, you delivered almost 200 basis points of comp ratio improvement in 2024. You referenced an expectation for gradual improvement in the margins. I wanted to ask, you know, as you stand here today, what's your expectation for that improvement in 2025? Would kind of that level, that 200 basis point level, be what you would consider gradual improvement? Or if the revenue environment is strong, could it actually be better than that? Thank you.

Tim LaLonde, CFO

Yeah, thanks for your question, Mike. Yeah, and as you did point out.

Operator

Thank you. Thank you, Tim. And our next question comes from Brennan Hawken with UBS. Please go ahead.

Brennan Hawken, Analyst — UBS

Good morning, John. Good morning, Tim. Thanks for taking my question. Appreciate the color, Tim, on the Compre Show right there. It sounds like you're striving to put up a similar level of leverage as you did in 2024. for. I know that there's all sorts of different factors that come into play, and recruiting and retention of talent can be a big one. Can you talk about what your expectations are for recruiting in the coming year? And last quarter, you spoke to the need to step up retention efforts and how that impacted the comp expense. Could you give us a little texture around what kind of impact we saw there and what we should expect into 2025 yeah sure uh thanks for the question

Tim LaLonde, CFO

brandon um look i think what is new to look for the highest quality people and continue to i think

John Weinberg, Chairman

that the recruiting environment remains very competitive the people with the intention of really continuing to drive may know right now in and really getting up to speed but i would say that that's going to continue really give you a good think you can anticipate we're going to be we're going to be performing at about the same level yeah and given a given activity is going

Brennan Hawken, Analyst — UBS

to pick up i can't imagine it'll get easier to recruit so no thanks for taking my question

Operator

yeah thank you and we will take our next question from devin ryan with citizens jmp please go ahead

Devin Ryan, Analyst — Citizens JMP

thanks good morning joe morning tim um question just on the mna backdrop and specifically larger deals. Obviously, Evercore advised on, I think, three of the top seven transactions in 2024. So I'm just curious if you're seeing any shift in the market around the largest deals post-election relative to maybe smaller deals, just given the changes at the FTC and expected changes in regulation, and just how that's kind of evolving within Evercore's pipeline specifically, or whether there's other factors that are maybe driving that as well. Thanks. Sure, Devin. We see

John Weinberg, Chairman

continuing robust activity at the board level and with management teams. I think that what we've said is that our backlog continues to strengthen. And I think that the large deals are a big part of the backlog. So I really believe that the environment is probably going to trend toward getting better, but clearly we're all watching. It's too early to really predict, but I think most people would say, and I think we would agree with, that there will be a loosening up of some of the regulatory overlay and that there'll be more of a possibility. And I think that the clients that we're dealing with would really say the same thing. My own personal experience is that management teams are very much looking at doing things and that really across the board, whether it's big strategics or whether it's sponsors, leadership teams are really looking at building the activity level. So I think we remain very optimistic and believe there could be very much a build through the balance of the year. Excellent. Thank you. Thank you. And we will

Operator

take our next question from James Yarrow with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

James Yarrow, Analyst — Goldman Sachs

Good morning, and thanks for taking my question. I have a high-level one and then a related, more nuanced question. John, maybe you could just speak to how much of an acceleration you're seeing in M&A today relative to the start of 2024 and perhaps which areas you're seeing activity improve most. And then zooming in, advisory results in the quarter evidenced the momentum you spoke about in your prepared remarks. I just wanted to confirm whether there might be any meaningful pull forward in M&A that contributed to the results of this quarter.

John Weinberg, Chairman

In terms of pull forward, not a particularly large amount. I mean, we don't usually comment on pull forward, but generally speaking, this was really not out of the ordinary. In fact, I'd say it was on the smaller side. But let me just get to the X sound is that really across the board, our businesses are really very active. I would say that January didn't have a high volume of announcements coming out really on any side, whether it was the equity side or the merger side. The activity level remains very robust for us, and I don't think it's really slowing down. And I don't think that would change our view that we've articulated, which is that we see a continued build throughout the balance of this year. And it's really, for our businesses, it's across the board. I think that virtually every one of our businesses is doing quite well. I wouldn't really say that there is a specific business which is doing better. In terms of, you know, technology side or the health care side or whether it's in general industrials, we're seeing activity across the board. So I don't think I'd make a distinction at this point.

Operator

Thank you. And we will take our next question from Brendan O'Brien with Wolf Research. Please go ahead.

Brendan O’Brien, Analyst — Wolfe Research

Good morning, and thanks for taking my question. I appreciate the point you made earlier on the 60 SMDs that you've added in the past three years. And that feels like to me that at least this means there's a higher percentage of your current SMD base ramping today than at any point in your recent history, which would suggest significant embedded growth potential within the firm. However, despite that, your productivity is actually not that far off your long-term average. So I just was hoping you could give some context around how the percentage of your ramping SMDs today compares to, you know, your long-term average and whether with this level of new joiners you still think you can get back to, you know, or up to around a $20 million productivity level in the near-to-intermediate term.

John Weinberg, Chairman

Well, I would just say that first to start with, we do have a large number of people ramping. So much of that, the ramp, has to do with the market and the opportunity that the market affords us. I'm very pleased with the new people we've added. In fact, there are some really interesting and exciting transactions in-house that have been generated by that group. And so I'm quite confident that that group is going to really start to drive productivity. And I think that really on all measures, the business is just getting more and more active and higher quality. The productivity is really a function as much of the level of revenue because really the more active the market becomes, the more our people can generate. You know, at this point, we're in the high teens now, and through the cycle, we've been able to get up to into the 20s, and I veer from that. I believe that that's where we could go, and I think that we actually have people in place that as the market recovers and announcements start to come in, that we're going to be driving more revenue.

Tim LaLonde, CFO

Yeah, I say thank you for taking my questions.

Operator

Thank you. And we will take our next question from Aidan Hull with KBW. Please go ahead.

Aidan Hall, Analyst — KBW

Great. Thank you. Morning, John, Tim, Katie. I hope everyone's well. I just wanted to ask on the private capital advisory business. Obviously, Evercore is a market leader in the space, seeing really strong results both in PCA and PFG. But there's increasing competition from the success of the secondaries market and broader industry volumes. You know, there's been some announcements of larger banks moving in with more targeted efforts in this area of advisory. I'm curious how you think about your competitive advantage in the space and ability to defend that market share.

John Weinberg, Chairman

Well, last year we had record years in both of our private capital advisory businesses. And I think we are very optimistic, really, about each one of those businesses going forward. In terms of market position, we are competing very effectively for new business and clients. And I think each of the business leaders in those business units really have a great deal of optimism in terms of how they're going to continue to build the business. As you may have seen, that, you know, in terms of the continuation fund activity level, it's quite high right now. And I think that we're adding, continue to add new products, you know, in the PCS. And then in PFG, what you're, we're getting, we're bringing in more. I would say, yes, it's getting, but right now we're competing very well in our.

Aidan Hall, Analyst — KBW

Thanks for taking my question.

Operator

Thank you. And as a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press the star and one on your telephone keypad now. And we will take our next question from Ryan Kinney with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Ryan Kinney, Analyst — Morgan Stanley

Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking my question. I just want to dig in on the pace of activity build in 25 in both M&A and equity capital markets. You mentioned January announcements were a bit weaker for the industry, and you used the word gradual. So I really want to understand whether recent market volatility around tariffs and AI developments had any impact on the first quarter, any risks we should keep in mind as we think about that pace of build through 2025.

John Weinberg, Chairman

Recognizing that January has been a little bit slower, we continue to think there's going to be a gradual build, and I don't think we're really coming off that. We don't at this point see that tariffs are impacting the activity level of really preparing for doing things. We see it both in the strategics as well as financial sponsors. So we see activity levels continuing to build. And, you know, the dialogue on deals is very relevant right now. In the equity capital market space, the same thing. we see a build, and we see that as the balance of the year goes forward, we think it's going to continue to improve, that market's going to continue to improve. So I think generally we don't think there's any disruption at this point. We think it's really going to continue on the pace that we've anticipated.

Operator

Thank you. And we will take a follow-up question from Devin Ryan with Citizens JMP. Please go ahead.

Devin Ryan, Analyst — Citizens JMP

Great, thanks. Just a question on capital. to obviously build $350 million of cash year-over-year, appreciate you still need to pay bonuses, and so that will bring cash back down. But if we make some assumptions, it would still seem like there was some excess capital build over the course of the year. So I'm just kind of curious whether there would be any reason why you'd want to hold kind of a high proportion of cash as you grow, or does that reflect maybe some of the uncertainty from 2024? Maybe it's just timing. So I'd just love to get a sense on kind of how you're thinking about the excess capital position and kind of where you're entering 2025 because it would seem like it's up to over 24.

Tim LaLonde, CFO

Yeah, sure, sure. We do think there's been a help to kind of point out last.

Operator

Thank you. And we will take our next question from James Yarrow with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

James Yarrow, Analyst — Goldman Sachs

Thanks for taking the follow-up. Just on restructuring, that appears to have been quite strong across the industry this quarter. I would love to get your perspective on whether that was the case for you, but then as you think about the outlook for restructuring, how do you think about the ability for that business to stay at these elevated levels or even potentially grow from here?

John Weinberg, Chairman

Well, last year we had a very strong year in restructuring. I think it was our second best year ever, and we continue to see activity level in that space to be very strong. And frankly, the business has changed a little bit in that it's not in restructuring companies. There's a lot of liability management that plays into it. And we've really guaranteed that it's always going to be at these levels, which there's no question that is more relevant and more really marketing.

James Yarrow, Analyst — Goldman Sachs

Appreciate the color. Thanks, Don.

Operator

Thank you. And this concludes today's Evercore fourth quarter 2024 and full year earnings conference call. You may now disconnect.