Earnings Call Transcript
HOULIHAN LOKEY, INC. (HLI)
Earnings Call Transcript - HLI Q4 2020
Operator, Operator
Good day, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to Houlihan Lokey's Fiscal Year-end Fourth Quarter 2020 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. Please note that this conference call is being recorded today, May 12, 2020. I will now turn the call over to Christopher Crain, Houlihan Lokey's General Counsel. Thank you, Mr. Crain. You may begin.
Christopher Crain, General Counsel
Thank you, operator, and hello, everyone. By now, everyone should have access to our fourth quarter and fiscal year 2020 earnings release, which can be found on the Houlihan Lokey website at www.hl.com in the Investor Relations section. Before we begin our formal remarks, we need to remind everyone that the discussion today will include forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements, which are usually identified by use of words such as will, expect, anticipate, should or other similar phrases are not guarantees of future performance. These statements are subject to numerous risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from what we expect, and therefore, you should exercise caution when interpreting and relying on them. We refer all of you to our recent SEC filings for a more detailed discussion of the risks that could impact our future operating results and financial condition. We encourage investors to review our regulatory filings, including the Form 10-K for the quarter ended March 31, 2020, when it is filed with the SEC. During today's call, we will discuss non-GAAP financial measures, which we believe can be useful in evaluating the company's financial performance. These measures should not be considered in isolation or as a substitute for our financial results prepared in accordance with GAAP. A reconciliation of these measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures is available in our earnings release and our investor presentation on the hl.com website. Hosting the call today, we have Scott Beiser, Houlihan Lokey's Chief Executive Officer; and Lindsey Alley, Chief Financial Officer of the company. They will provide some opening remarks, and then we will open the call to questions. With that, I'll turn the call over to Scott.
Scott Beiser, CEO
Thank you, Christopher. Welcome everyone to our fourth quarter and fiscal year 2020 earnings call. I would like to start by thanking our incredible employees around the world. They have worked tirelessly these last couple of months in a difficult operating environment and they have done so from their living rooms, kitchens, and home offices. Their safety and health is our firm's utmost concern, and we're blessed that very few of our employees have been afflicted with COVID-19. Next, we would like to thank all the workers who continue to provide us with their medical needs, food, and other essential services. Without their dedication and sacrifice, our world would simply be less safe. I am pleased to announce that Houlihan Lokey and its senior management team have contributed approximately $2 million to first responder causes thus far. And with our ongoing employer matching program, we anticipate the firm and our employees will continue to contribute as we all get through this together. Moving on to our operations and financial results, I will provide my remarks in three sections. One, a brief overview of our fourth quarter and fiscal year 2020 results; two, a summary of the firm's activity and how we believe we are positioned in the current business environment; and three, an overview of potential opportunities that this pandemic creates for us over the next year or two. Our fourth quarter fiscal 2020 revenues were $303 million, up 4% year-over-year. This was the firm's second highest quarterly revenues, surpassed only by our third quarter this fiscal year. For the full fiscal year, we achieved record revenues of $1.16 billion, up 7% with year-over-year growth recorded in all three business segments. Corporate Finance and Financial and Valuation Advisory achieved record results and Financial Restructuring had its second best year ever. Adjusted earnings for the quarter were $0.96 per share, up 12%; and for the full year, adjusted earnings were $3.20 per share, up 11%. Lindsey will provide more details on our fiscal quarter and full-year financial results, including some favorable tax results that benefited our earnings per share later in this call. Today we operate in a completely different business environment than last quarter. Since we went public nearly five years ago, we have worked hard to explain to our investors, clients, employees, and acquisition targets why we believe our cyclically balanced business model is unique and why we are well positioned to operate in challenging environments like the one we are in today. It is far too early to tell what the next few quarters or years hold for us, our industry, or our economy. We have never seen disruption like we are seeing today and we cannot predict what our economy will look like when all is said and done. Having said that, let me describe the changes we are seeing at Houlihan Lokey as well as remind you of the key tenets of our business model. Activity in our restructuring business has increased significantly in the last two months, and the size and complexity of transactions have increased as well. New engagement activity is running at almost double our recent monthly run rate as the pandemic has greatly increased the number of troubled situations and the speed at which solutions are needed. Prior to the crisis, we believed our Financial Restructuring revenues would substantially increase in a normal economic downturn in light of the sizable amount of leverage in the marketplace. Needless to say, the ramifications of the pandemic have exceeded those of a normal downturn and the activity levels have increased faster than we expected. Nevertheless, we are the largest restructuring firm in the world with nearly 250 dedicated restructuring bankers. We believe that we are better positioned than anyone to operate in this environment. Through collaboration with our capital markets team, industry bankers, and valuation professionals, we have several hundred additional colleagues assisting with liability management, debt advisory, distressed mergers and acquisitions, and traditional restructuring mandates. Simply put, we are prepared for this market. In mergers and acquisitions, new business activity levels have declined significantly in the last two months. As our clients have pulled back to await better clarity in the economy and understand what the ramifications may be as the world begins to lift stay-at-home orders, deals have died, and even more have been put on temporary hold, and most have seen their timing slowed. Notwithstanding the current negative economic tone, we continue to be hired on numerous new engagements, albeit at a much slower pace than the level experienced this time last year. Until we and our clients are through the initial stages of the pandemic and are able to travel, it is difficult to tell when merger and acquisition activity will resemble anything approaching normal. Nonetheless, our industry bankers and corporate finance remain active on existing merger and acquisition transactions, capital market mandates, and working with our restructuring colleagues to provide integrated solutions for our clients dealing with distressed situations. This workforce shift is a hallmark of our business adaptability and sophistication, which has historically allowed us to keep our industry bankers operating efficiently through the cycles. Furthermore, the substantial involvement of our industry bankers in restructuring deals bodes well for post-restructuring corporate finance and valuation work. Our capital markets bankers pivoted from financing healthy acquisitions to liability management, debt advisory, rescue financing, and bridge financing. Although the number of new financing opportunities has declined, the size and complexity has increased as many borrowers who historically relied on traditional financing sources now find themselves in need of more flexible financing options. As traditional capital sources become less available for certain sectors of the market, we fully expect this group to remain busy throughout the year. Within our Financial and Valuation Advisory business, each of our subproduct lines is affected differently. Our portfolio valuation group is extremely busy as the volatility in the marketplace is putting pressure on clients as they mark-to-market their investments. However, as we see fewer clients pursuing deals, our transaction opinion and transaction advisory work has been slower than usual. Financial Sponsors' coverage bankers have been a focal point for the sponsor community in understanding what their current needs are. We continue to provide advice to these important clients making introductions to our various industry, capital markets, restructuring, and valuation bankers. It's also important to highlight some timing results and expectations about our business model. We saw a significant decline in merger and acquisition revenues in March and continue to see lower revenues in April. For restructuring, the new business activity levels picked up as quickly as the levels declined in merger and acquisitions. And although our restructuring transaction engagements have monthly retainers, the larger success fees won't begin to significantly impact revenues for several quarters and into our next fiscal year. As a result of this dynamic in previous cycles, there were a few quarters where we experienced a decline in total revenues before a leveling off and ultimate growth of the business. It is too early to predict how this economic downturn will behave, but it's important to understand history. Similar trends that I just described occurred in our business in 2008 and before that in 2001. In both of those recessions, we outperformed the industry and exited the bottom of the cycle stronger than we entered. Today, once again, our business model is performing the way we had envisioned. Our execution and the depth and breadth of the pandemic aftermath over the next 24 months will be critical to our performance during this crisis and thereafter. Now I would like to highlight a couple of strategic opportunities that exist because of the dislocation in the market. Firstly, any dislocation of this size puts a significant strain on many industries, including the one in which Houlihan Lokey operates. Many of our Corporate Finance competitors are small boutiques or mid-sized middle-market investment banking firms. Many of them offer only the M&A product or specialize in one industry sector or geography. Some of our competitors may struggle significantly over the next several quarters or wish they had a more diverse product offering. This highlights to our competitors the strength of our platform and spotlights some of their own limitations. In the last few months, our dialogue with firms interested in partnering with or being acquired by Houlihan Lokey has significantly increased. Furthermore, the size of these opportunities is somewhat larger than what we have historically encountered. Secondly, the potential to hire talented bankers who might be looking for a more stable and diversified organization should increase. In previous cycles, we have found very talented bankers out of work or at institutions that had less balance in their business models. Finally, our capital markets business should significantly benefit during and after this crisis as the value proposition of capital markets advice increases. There is now a growing set of opportunities for our firm to participate in and expand our capital market services. In closing, we are fortunate to have healthy employees, are pleased about our fiscal year 2020 financial results, and are realistic about the challenges that lie ahead. However, we also fully expect to see opportunities in the near future that will drive value to our shareholders, and we believe we are very well positioned to capitalize on those opportunities. With that, I'll turn the call over to Lindsey.
Lindsey Alley, CFO
Thank you, Scott. Revenues in Corporate Finance were $156 million for the quarter, up 8% when compared to the same quarter last year. We closed 84 transactions compared to 64 in the same period last year, and our average transaction fee on closed deals was slightly lower this quarter when compared to the same period last year. Our Corporate Finance revenues were meaningfully impacted beginning in March as a result of COVID-19. Financial Restructuring revenues were strong this quarter at $103 million, a 3% increase from the same period last year, driven by higher transaction volume. We closed 29 transactions compared to 27 transactions in the same period last year, and our average transaction fee on closed deals was relatively flat. As Scott mentioned, our Financial Restructuring activity has significantly increased, but there was no impact related to COVID-19 on our Financial Restructuring results this last quarter. While this quarter was one of our strongest ever in Financial Restructuring, our restructuring business can be lumpy across quarters depending on the timing of certain large transaction fees. In Financial and Valuation Advisory, revenues were $44 million for the quarter, an 8% decrease from the same period last year. We had 624 fee events during the quarter compared to 605 in the same period last year. However, our FVA revenues were negatively impacted beginning in March. Turning to expenses. Our adjusted compensation expenses were $184 million for the fourth quarter versus $177 million for the same period last year. We adjusted for pre-IPO grants and for deferred payments, primarily related to certain acquisitions. The adjusted compensation ratio was 60.9% for the quarter within our targeted range of between 60.5% and 61.5%. As a reminder, the last tranche of our pre-IPO grants has vested, and as a result, these adjustments will go away beginning next quarter. We will continue to adjust for acquisition-related expenses as they occur. The adjustment for acquisition-related compensation expenses was positive this quarter as we reevaluated certain contingent compensation given the new operating environment. Our adjusted non-compensation expenses during the fourth quarter were $45 million versus $39 million for the same period last year. Our adjusted non-compensation expense ratio increased to 14.9% from 13.3% in the same quarter last year, and our year-to-date adjusted non-compensation ratio is 15.2% versus 15.1% for the same period last year. For fiscal year 2021, we expect to see our non-compensation expenses decline on an absolute basis as a result of less travel and marketing-related expenses. However, the vast majority of our non-compensation expenses are fixed and will not vary with revenue. This quarter we adjusted one item out of our non-compensation expenses of approximately $2.3 million in acquisition-related amortization. We will continue to adjust for similar types of expenses when they occur. Our adjusted other income and expenses resulted in a gain for the quarter of approximately $1 million versus a gain during the same period last year of $1.9 million. This was primarily a result of interest income earned on our cash and investment balances. This quarter we adjusted out of our other income and expenses approximately $1.2 million in reduction of acquisition earn-out liabilities. Our adjusted effective tax rate for the quarter was 15.1%. For the fiscal year, our adjusted effective tax rate was 25.2%. The decrease in our adjusted effective tax rate this year was a result of decreased state tax expense driven by a favorable shift in the geographical makeup of our client base. We do not expect to see future benefits from state apportionment as there has been no structural change in our business. For future years, we are still anticipating an effective tax rate at our long-term targeted range of between 27% and 29%. Turning to the balance sheet and use of cash. As of the quarter-end, we had $516 million of unrestricted cash and equivalents and investment securities. We expect our unrestricted cash and equivalents and investment securities to decline significantly in the first quarter of fiscal 2021 as we pay the majority of our cash bonuses to our employees in May, and we will need to continue to maintain a significant amount of cash in order to pay the cash deferred part of our bonus in November. In the fourth quarter, we repurchased approximately 39,000 shares at an average price of $46.66 per share as part of our share repurchase program. In addition to having adequate liquidity in our business to weather the challenges caused by the crisis, we have effectively no debt and an undrawn revolver balance of $100 million. Finally, we are pleased to announce that we're paying a $0.31 per share dividend on June 15 to shareholders of record as of June 5. And with that, operator, we can open the line for questions.
Operator, Operator
Our first question comes from Ken Worthington with JPMorgan. Please go ahead with your question.
Ken Worthington, Analyst
I'm curious in the compare and contrast between today's COVID-19 crisis and the 2018 financial crisis as it relates to the restructuring business. So how are you seeing the magnitude of the restructuring opportunity today versus a decade ago? And what are the factors that we should consider in terms of evaluating both the size of the restructuring opportunity as well as the timing of the restructuring opportunity versus a decade ago? And then I'll sneak one last one in. You talked about it being a big opportunity. How are you evaluating your capacity at this point? You mentioned all the bankers, but anyway, capacity is something I'm interested in?
Scott Beiser, CEO
In terms of the opportunity set, call it today versus what we experienced in the Great Recession a little over a decade ago, one thing we would point to is the fact that on an absolute basis, the total amount of leverage and indebtedness is just much larger today than it was a decade ago, spread out in more companies and in more different countries. So we always thought that eventually, whenever that downturn would occur, we would experience increased activity. What we probably didn't expect in the next downturn was once again something that impacted effectively probably almost every country, and it may not have impacted every single industry, but this obviously is a very widespread type of downturn versus what we had seen also - 10 years ago was also widespread albeit it was a different kind of a crisis. But usually we have found different countries and different industries impacted at different times. So this is a rapid negative impact to lots and lots of businesses. I don't think anybody knows exactly how it will all play out in the coming months and quarters, et cetera. From a timing standpoint, I'm not sure we see it much different than what we had experienced before. You do get a certain amount of ramp-up, I'll call it, in Phase 1 of getting some work. We would expect that there will probably be subsequent increases in business opportunities not only for ourselves but our peers as well. And as we've always tried to describe, some of this stuff does take time before the revenues actually come in. The transaction fees are something that generally takes obviously longer than the monthly or quarterly retainers that we might get. In terms of capacity, I think we have done as good a job as anyone to take the core sizable restructuring team that we've had for really decades, which is in fact more experienced and talented today than it was 10 years ago. We have very little turnover in that group, and therefore they just have 10 years of more experience than they did before. We continue to supplement it where we can appropriately with our capital markets bankers, industry bankers, sponsor bankers, and valuation bankers, as I mentioned, so that we can continue to flex with the size of the opportunity.
Ken Worthington, Analyst
Great. Thank you. I'm just going to follow up on the differences. My understanding for '08, we really had a - it was a financial crisis and that the SEC may have pushed through bankruptcies, maybe more quickly than would have otherwise been the case. There was more of a sense of urgency to get things resolved, and that may have contributed to maybe more of a quick resolution to restructuring versus what we might expect now or in a more typical recession. Is there any merit to that comment, or is that either too small or just incorrect?
Scott Beiser, CEO
You know that the world continues to change so rapidly, and we might have told you one thing at the end of March, different than in the middle of May. So I think initially everybody was really just worried about, did they have enough cash to survive the next day, next week, next month. I think people have taken a little bit of pause in that, and there are still lots of companies in trouble, but they may not be in the same crisis mode that they were six or eight weeks ago, which gets to our point that there could be a few waves of this. The other difference I would say is that in the last crisis, in theory, you could continue to provide money to try to solve the problem. This has a lot to do with the human psyche, and a certain amount of money will not change people's fear to go outside and to go do certain things. Once again, there isn't a paradigm that we can all compare it to. So I think this is going to be as broad a kind of downturn as we've seen. And I think there are enough significant comments we would make to say that the speed of what the government is doing could cause it to be quicker or slower this time versus last time. We also know the Federal Reserve has come in and has talked about purchasing certain kinds of bonds that can also have some impact on the pacing of all of this, but right now I think you just assume it's a rather busy time in the restructuring world.
Operator, Operator
Our next question comes from Devin Ryan with JMP Securities. Please proceed with your question.
Devin Ryan, Analyst
First question here, just on the M&A backdrop. Obviously, appreciate that activity has slowed and there's quite a bit of uncertainty out there in markets and typically don't like uncertainty. So just trying to think about the M&A activity that you are seeing. It sounds like you're still winning some mandates. Is the nature of the deals already changing to maybe more distressed or activity tied to COVID or supply chain, et cetera? Or I'm just trying to think about the type of M&A that's occurring right now even if it may be at a more modest pace and whether that starts to shift to a different tenor. And then are the financing markets open, and do sponsors or other companies have access to financing right now?
Christopher Crain, General Counsel
A couple of responses. Clearly, there is some work in the distressed M&A environment as you described. We also have to remember that in this particular downturn there are some industries that are doing fine and some actually are even growing. And obviously, some industries are just getting decimated. So you do have a mix and match between the financial wherewithal of different industries. We're also getting hired in certain situations where people say we know we'll get through this, we don't know exactly when, so go ahead and get started. Go put together information, build your book, but they're not ready to have us actually go out and talk to prospective buyers. I think the real issue is some of that is financing, but as much as until people are able and willing to actually go and physically meet with management and talk with management, there's only so much that at least buyers and sellers have done or are willing to do without some other form of tele and video conferencing. So I think that's one of the gating issues. I think initially on the financing side, it really stemmed from people trying to deal with rescue financing, and it's clearly improved on the financing marketplace today versus where it was six or eight weeks ago, but it's clearly not nearly as healthy as it obviously was three or six months ago. I think it's really the uncertainty where people do not know exactly how this will end and when it will end. And they do buy in ordinary course, whether you're a private equity firm or a strategic company; in the ordinary course, you eventually do need to meet the business and the management team, tour the factories, all those things. There are certain things that they still want to do, and at this juncture, they're finding difficulties in doing it.
Devin Ryan, Analyst
Okay. Great color. Thanks, Scott. And then just a follow-up here. Lindsey, you gave a little bit of detail on how to think about expenses, and I appreciate that maybe some of that especially travel, et cetera, is more temporary. So I'm just trying to think about if the business mix is shifting maybe for the next couple of years, what the implications are on operating margins, if any?
Lindsey Alley, CFO
I'm not sure that a business shift has a significant impact on the operating margins. I think that what we expect to see is a reduction in travel and entertainment and a reduction in marketing expenses, but as you suggested, that will be a short-term next couple of quarters’ favorable benefit to us. I think after that, regardless of whether Corporate Finance is up or down or restructuring is up or down, we will have much of an impact on our non-comp expense, nor will have an impact on our comp expense.
Operator, Operator
Our next question comes from Brennan Hawken with UBS. Please proceed with your question.
Brennan Hawken, Analyst
I was hoping you could maybe help us frame the situation through the lens of some prior cycles. And Scott, I know you made some comments on those first timing earlier, but thinking about it from a productivity perspective. Could you talk to us about the typical kind of order of magnitude increase you see in a normal cyclical downturn from your restructuring bankers? And correspondingly, what kind of a typical decline do you see in the productivity metrics for your M&A bankers? Thanks.
Scott Beiser, CEO
When we go back in our memory, you've got what, 11 years, 12 years since the last downturn, and then I think go back another 7 years. So a lot of this is almost engine history in today's financial world. Having said that, I would say that the timeframe to complete restructuring deals seems to have shrunk cycle to cycle, so things do get done on a little quicker basis but how you get paid, when you get paid, this whole retainer amount versus transaction fee amount, I don't think has changed. There is always a delay between getting hired, getting started, getting retainer fees and then eventually getting that transaction fee. So initially, the comment is going to be your bankers are incredibly busy, but if your definition of productivity measure is revenues divided by people, there's always going to be a lag in the revenue build-up on the restructuring side. Conversely, on the M&A side, you have a large number of deals at any given time as I mentioned earlier in my comments. There is a subset of them that died. We don't think we'll come back. There is even a larger number that are on hold; we believe the vast majority of those will come back. It's just a matter of when. So those are available to assist with productivity. And then as I mentioned, you've got new deals coming in at a less than what we've seen in a normal timeframe. But while we are processing and moving forward on them, we'll eventually hit a hurdle on how far we can go with some of these new engagements until, like I said, the world's kind of frees up to allow people to travel and interact a bit more.
Brennan Hawken, Analyst
I appreciate all that. I guess what I was just trying to think about is when we speak about profit peak restructuring cycles, does the - putting timing aside, right, I'm not talking about the next quarters. Who knows, right, all of that stuff is very uncertain. I was just more trying to think about from a frame of reference of, do you see the productivity as measured by revenue per managing director? Is it double? Does it go up 150%? What kind of a quantum of increase do you typically see in restructuring? And then correspondingly, when you look at the decline in M&A at least during a timeframe of a few years, how much of the decline do you typically see from your peak levels of activity down to the trough?
Lindsey Alley, CFO
Yes, more familiarity on the restructuring side, where I think in the last cycle, we probably came close to doubling productivity. Clearly, a reduction in Corporate Finance. The problem in describing Corporate Finance is we were a much different, smaller, less diversified organization on the Corporate Finance side in 2007 and 2008 than where we are today, so I don't think it would be a reasonable comparison. And then you do get in the way we report things, we book things in the type of the test that it is, but then we will move people around to help out. So you're also going to get some skewing. We don't take a Corporate Finance person, and all of a sudden make them a Restructuring person; and take the Restructuring person and make them a Corporate Finance person. The revenues will get booked on what the task is, but we will have - we keep revenues where they're supposed to be, but we don't move the headcount. We deal with that and how we bonus and pay people but not necessarily from a reporting segment standpoint.
Brennan Hawken, Analyst
Okay, that makes a lot of sense, and that's very helpful. Thank you. I think you flagged the fact that you're seeing a lot of mandates come in at a pace that's picked up a lot. Is there a way to quantify where the outstanding mandates stand today versus where they stood two months ago before you saw this big flurry of activity?
Lindsey Alley, CFO
And I assume you're talking about restructuring, was your question?
Brennan Hawken, Analyst
Restructuring, yes, sorry. Apologies, I mandates…
Scott Beiser, CEO
The only thing we disclose is the number of closed transactions we have by quarter. We don't really talk about the number of active assignments we have or backlog and the actual stated amount. So I think we should just be consistent with what we provided in the past, which is really just input on a number of closed transactions. Like I said, I can tell you over the last couple of months, you post kind of the COVID crisis, we've just seen, as I think you've heard from all of our competitors, a significant increase in the number of assignments that we're talking to, getting hired on, et cetera.
Brennan Hawken, Analyst
Okay, fair enough. Maybe since I can take a mulligan on that one. You had talked, Scott, I think about the fact that in the past, there was a few quarters lag between when the economic downturn began and restructuring picked up. But you also have said that this environment is very different, and is resulting in mandates coming in a more rapidly than you've seen in the past. And the magnitude of disruption is certain business models being significantly greater. Could that result in an environment where the typical cyclical lag in restructuring revenue actually does not become manifest in this environment, and you actually see restructuring revenues start picking up sooner, or is that too optimistic to be thinking about given some of the other constraints around meeting with people and such?
Scott Beiser, CEO
I think when you blend it all together, our timing expectations from activity levels getting hired, billing, occurring revenues collecting. I don't think are much different than what we saw in the previous one or two cycles. There will be certain projects that obviously are going to get more accelerated because of this crisis than others, but I don't think you'll see kind of a significant timing difference on kind of revenue build-up heading into this particular downturn versus what we saw back in the '08, '09, '10 timeframe.
Operator, Operator
Our next question comes from Jeff Harte with Piper Sandler. Please proceed with your question.
Jeff Harte, Analyst
Most have been hit but only one thing I want to touch on is, you talked about how much better and worse, I guess, restructuring and Corporate Finance got late in the quarter. I'm trying to get a feel for the magnitude there to kind of get an idea of what our jumping-off point would be. And I'm kind of - I thought I heard you say, and correct me if I'm wrong, that the activity level changes in each of them are very similar implying kind of offsetting, but that the Financial Restructuring just has a longer revenue recognition lag, I mean, am I getting that correctly?
Scott Beiser, CEO
What we saw, if your question was about January, February, March, it was clearly I would say, a normal looking January and February, and an abnormal looking March which impacted what ultimately we produced in our fiscal fourth quarter and that's the jumping-off point. In terms of the comment about activity, yeah, I'm talking about kind of business coming in or business coming out that isn't necessarily the same as revenues, where, like I said, we saw a lot more business activity coming in restructuring, and we saw a lot less business activity coming in, and some existing Corporate Finance activity was either died or put on hold. Once again from a timing issue, you're going to find a relatively quick evaporation on Corporate Finance revenues of the deals died or put on hold. Obviously, you're not going to get the revenues. And on restructuring, we've got activity, we've got people working, we've got a number of assignments. We are getting revenues on those, but the pace of how those revenues come in and specifically the transaction fees, you don't close deals in one or two months. We've always said, this could be typically six months to two years of an assignment in restructuring and look, some go multiple years and some could go a little shorter, like I said, on a blended basis. I don't think we will find a huge timing difference in the ramp-up on how it looks in this downturn versus the previous downturn. Well, thank you, everyone. And I want to thank everybody for participating in our fourth quarter and fiscal year 2020 earnings call. We look forward to updating everyone on our progress when we discuss our first quarter results for fiscal 2021 this coming summer.
Operator, Operator
Ladies and gentlemen, this has concluded today's teleconference. You may now disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation and have a great day.