Earnings Call Transcript - LAZ Q2 2024

Operator, Operator

Good morning and welcome to Lazard's Second Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call. This call is being recorded. Currently, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Following the remarks, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. At this time, I will turn the call over to Alexandra Deignan, Lazard's Head of Investor Relations, Treasury and Corporate Sustainability. Please go ahead.

Alexandra Deignan, Head of Investor Relations, Treasury and Corporate Sustainability

Thank you, Ashley. Good morning and welcome to Lazard's earnings call for the second quarter and first half of 2024. I'm Alexandra Deignan, Head of Investor Relations, Treasury and Corporate Sustainability. In addition to today's audio comments, we have posted our earnings release on our website. A replay of this call will also be available on our website later today. Before we begin, let me remind you that we may make forward-looking statements about our business and performance. There are important factors that could cause our actual results, level of activity, performance, achievements, or other events to differ materially from those expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements, including but not limited to those factors discussed in the company's SEC filings which you can access on our website. Lazard assumes no responsibility for the accuracy or completeness of these forward-looking statements and assumes no duty to update them. Today's discussion also includes certain non-GAAP financial measures that we believe are meaningful when evaluating the company's performance. A reconciliation of these non-GAAP financial measures to the comparable GAAP measures is provided in our Earnings Release and Investor Presentation. Hosting our call today are Peter Orszag, Lazard's Chief Executive Officer; and Mary Ann Betsch, Lazard's Chief Financial Officer. After our prepared remarks, Peter and Mary Ann will be joined by Evan Russo, Chief Executive Officer of Asset Management as they open the call for questions. I'll now turn the call over to Peter.

Peter Orszag, CEO

Thank you, Ale and good morning to everyone on today's call. We are pleased to report another quarter of strong results as we continue to pursue a long-term growth strategy. For the first half of the year, total firm-wide adjusted net revenue was $1.4 billion, up 25% from the prior year. Financial Advisory adjusted net revenue set a record for the first half of the year at $855 million. This growth reflects our expanding traction with clients and ongoing improvements in market conditions along with momentum behind our vision for Lazard's future and success in executing our long-term plan. Our Asset Management business delivered solid results with adjusted net revenue for the first half of the year of $541 million. In a complex market environment, our investment professionals are continuing to help clients diversify their portfolios and achieve desired risk-adjusted returns. Our effective execution during the first half of the year is also built upon our culture. Across the firm, there is a palpable sense that our increasingly commercial and collegial approach is delivering positive outcomes for clients and strengthening our reputation for excellence. I'll share more on our performance and outlook shortly. But first, let me turn the call over to Mary Ann to provide further details on our results.

Mary Ann Betsch, CFO

Thank you, Peter. Today, we reported second quarter firm-wide adjusted net revenue of $685 million, up 10% from the same time last year and $1.4 billion for the first half of the year, up 25%. The increase in firm-wide revenue was driven by our Financial Advisory business. Financial Advisory adjusted net revenue was $408 million for the second quarter, up 19% from 1 year ago and a record $855 million for the first half of 2024, up 38%. Our banking teams performed well across both the United States and Europe, with record revenue for the U.S. in the first half of the year. Strategic M&A, Restructuring & Liability Management, and Private Capital Advisory all benefited from expanded activity and meaningfully contributed to our results. Lazard participated in a number of marquee transactions in the second quarter. Completed transactions include WestRock's combination with Smurfit Kappa Group, Vertex Pharmaceuticals' acquisition of Alpine Immune Sciences, Sanofi's acquisition of Inhibrx, and HASI's strategic partnership with KKR. In addition, recently announced transactions include Rivian's strategic investment from Volkswagen and Neiman Marcus Group's sales to HBC, the parent company of Saks Fifth Avenue. We also advised on several capital markets assignments, including Ceva Sante Animale's term loan repricing and resizing, Morrisons' debt reduction, Kingswood Capital's closing of its Opportunities Fund III, and Exosen's initial public offering on Euronext Paris. Turning to Asset Management; for the second quarter, adjusted net revenue was $265 million, down 1% compared to the second quarter last year. Management fees for the second quarter increased 1% compared to the second quarter last year. As of June 30, we reported AUM of $245 billion, 2% higher than June 2023 and 2% lower than March 2024. During the quarter, we had market appreciation of $2.5 billion offset by foreign exchange depreciation of $1.7 billion and net outflows of $6.6 billion. Average AUM for the second quarter was $245 billion, 4% higher than the second quarter of 2023 and down 1% on a sequential basis. We see ongoing client interest across our investment platforms, including growing client engagement in our global emerging markets, quantitative and fixed income strategies. Now turning to expenses; for the second quarter of 2024, our adjusted compensation expense was $452 million resulting in a compensation ratio of 66% compared to 68.4% for the second quarter one year ago. We continue to attract senior professionals in both Financial Advisory and Asset Management as we invest in talent to support our long-term growth. For the second quarter, our adjusted non-compensation expense was $149 million, up 3% compared to the prior year and equating to a ratio of 21.7% compared to 23.2% one year ago. We continue to make targeted investments in the business while remaining focused on expense management. Shifting to taxes; our adjusted effective tax rate for the second quarter was 14%, reflecting a favorable court decision in a long-standing tax matter during the quarter. This compares to 31.2% for the second quarter of 2023. We expect our full year 2024 effective tax rate to be in the mid-to-high 20% range. Turning to capital allocation; in the second quarter of 2024 we returned $70 million to shareholders including a quarterly dividend of $45 million, share repurchases of $19 million, and $6 million in satisfaction of employee tax obligations. During the second quarter, we repurchased approximately 500,000 shares bringing our year-to-date total repurchases to 1.1 million shares. We currently have outstanding share repurchase authorization of approximately $360 million. We remain committed to balancing investments in growth with returning capital to our shareholders with a quarterly dividend of $0.50 per share declared yesterday. Now, I'll turn the call back to Peter.

Peter Orszag, CEO

Thank you, Mary Ann. Overall, the economic conditions relative to our business continue to improve. As we anticipated earlier this year, inflation is heading in the right direction now that residual seasonal factors are largely behind us. With the odds of a Fed rate cut this year now higher, we expect further improvement in the operating environment for both of our businesses. In Financial Advisory, during the first half of this year, headwinds for activity have tapered and deal financing has become more readily available. At the same time, the fundamental drivers of deal activity are ongoing, including innovations driven by technology and generative AI, energy transition, the biotech revolution, and shifts in supply chain globally. Improving market conditions along with the successful execution of our growth strategy have resulted in record revenue. We continue to expand in areas such as private capital with the combination of our capital solutions, fundraising, and sponsor coverage, delivering growth in the quarter and creating new business opportunities. Restructuring & Liability Management also contributed to a record first half of the year with ongoing client demand for our expertise. Our geopolitical insights increasingly generate client interest and our geopolitical team is producing revenue both directly and indirectly by expanding client connectivity. We are pleased to have achieved record revenue in the United States and to be ranked in the league table number one globally for restructuring completions in the quarter and number one in France for announced and completed M&A transactions for the first half of 2024. Deep knowledge of our markets, long-established client relationships, and increasingly collaborative efforts across the firm reinforce the power of our integrated and global franchise. Finally, our culture and brand are attracting exceptional talent to the firm as is a growing recognition of the momentum behind our vision for Lazard. We have hired 9 Managing Directors in Financial Advisory so far this year with ongoing recruiting efforts underway and additional new hires expected. With more favorable conditions and the higher likelihood of a Fed rate cut this year, we anticipate that our Asset Management business also will benefit as investors shift toward more risk-oriented asset management. For the first half of the year, the higher-for-longer rate environment reduced allocations into active equity strategies by reinforcing the appeal of money market investments and fixed income products. Market conditions have also resulted in investors favoring U.S. equities with a focus on growth. Our Asset Management business skews towards equities and largely comprises global, international, and emerging market offerings, with an emphasis on relative value and quality investment styles. More specifically, the bulk of our offerings today can be divided into two categories. The first, which we call core products, play a foundational role in client portfolios, with significant allocations that are central to what the asset owner is trying to achieve. Lazard is often chosen to deliver these core products because of unique insights from our deep global research capabilities. The second category of our Asset Management business is specialty offerings. These are built upon specific theme sectors or specialized product expertise. The purpose here is to add more targeted assets to the asset owner’s portfolio. Examples include our Japanese equity, listed infrastructure, and convertible arbitrage strategies. Looking ahead, we see three areas for expanded activity in our Asset Management business. The first is that we anticipate more demand for our existing core and specialty offerings as central banks lower rates and the market rally broadens beyond a handful of U.S. growth stocks. Over time and especially as investors look to diversify, we expect that both our core and specialty offerings in global active public market investing will attract new client opportunities. We also have been investing in our distribution capabilities, including wealth management, so that we can reinforce the strength of our offerings as market conditions shift. The next area for additional activity in the future is the development of new specialty products and strategies which we incubate and scale along with new ways of packaging these products. As examples, we have introduced our U.S. small-cap equity fund which is designed to capture market inefficiencies through an AI-enhanced investment process. We also launched the Lazard Global Listed Infrastructure Active ETF in Australia which builds on the success of one of our specialty strategies. This marks an initial step in delivering our expertise in a vehicle that reflects growing investor preferences. Finally, our third area for expanded activity is continuing to evolve our Asset Management business through new opportunities outside of public markets. This includes inorganic growth through acquisition or partnerships into new products and strategies. For example, during the quarter, we established Lazard Elaia Capital, a strategic partnership in Europe that will launch a growth capital fund to invest in private companies within the technology industry. Overall, Lazard delivered another quarter of strong results, providing further evidence of progress toward our long-term growth objectives. While we are in a period of geopolitical uncertainty, we see a constructive environment for business activity in 2024, both in the U.S. and in Europe. In all environments, we remain focused on our clients who choose Lazard to help them navigate their most complex risks and opportunities. We are consistently executing against our Lazard 2030 plan and are even more encouraged by the progress to date which is ahead of schedule. Our galvanized team, strategic hiring, and renewed ambition have positioned us to capture market share. As we transition to an environment where central banks reduce rates, we anticipate improved conditions for strategic deal making, elevated sponsor activity, and increased appetite for active asset management. I'd like to thank our colleagues for their extraordinary efforts and energy behind achieving our vision for Lazard. Now, we'll open the call to questions.

Operator, Operator

We'll take our first question from Ryan Kenny with Morgan Stanley.

Ryan Kenny, Analyst

A few of your peers have commented on sponsor activity really picking up in the second quarter kind of behind the scenes. Are you seeing the same thing? And any color on what conversations with sponsors are looking like; and any significant change versus last quarter?

Peter Orszag, CEO

Sure. First, I want to mention that we have been investing significantly in an expanded range of coverage efforts related to private capital. This includes our PCA business, which focuses on primary and secondary fundraising, and our Lazard Capital Solutions business that facilitates innovative financing often sourced from private capital. Additionally, we have restructured our liability management team to work with both debtors and creditors, usually in collaboration with private capital. We've also expanded our sponsor coverage, including new senior hires focused on sovereign wealth funds, and enhanced our traditional private equity M&A coverage. All of these efforts are interconnected. As a result, more than one-third of our advisory revenue now comes from private capital. We are observing an uptick in activity from sponsors as the M&A cycle expands and diversifies. While recent activity has leaned more towards the strategic side, it is beginning to reach sponsors. Several factors contribute to this shift, including limited partners seeking cash returns and a significant amount of unused capital that could lapse if not deployed. Notably, the ongoing decrease in inflation is leading to expectations of interest rate cuts, which not only improves financing conditions but also reduces the bid-ask spread between buyers and sellers of assets. Consequently, we are witnessing this activity starting to increase, and Lazard is well-equipped to adapt to the market's evolving demand for additional sponsor engagement.

Ryan Kenny, Analyst

And just a follow-up on the election cycle. You mentioned before that the global election cycle is a relative headwind to M&A activity picking up. Is that still the case? And how should we think about that headwind, balancing versus the tailwinds of rate cuts coming and higher market levels that we saw on a year-over-year basis?

Peter Orszag, CEO

Yes, I don't really view it as a headwind necessarily as opposed to just a factor that clients want to take into account as they consider what they do. I've said before and I believe it's still to be true today that you can't make an important business decision without taking geopolitical considerations into account. And we are seeing a more constructive environment across the board despite the fact that there have been a lot of elections across the globe and there will continue to be some including an important one here in the United States. So it is something that is taken into account in boards and C-suites as it should. It is creating significant demand for our geopolitical team. And it is, I think, a relative strength of Lazard's to help navigate these sorts of issues.

Operator, Operator

We'll take our next question from Jim Mitchell with Seaport Global.

Jim Mitchell, Analyst

So you've had record first half revenue on an annualized basis. It's the second best year ever, except for '21. I think you had talked about in a normal year with the 10% headcount reduction and efforts to be more efficient on the non-comp side; you can kind of get to your pre-tax margin goal. I realize not all those savings are hitting this year. But can you speak to where we stand on hitting those targets given the improving revenue environment and obviously, the expectation that things could even be better next year?

Peter Orszag, CEO

Sure. We are dedicated to achieving our margin targets as conditions improve. While we are seeing growing momentum and believe there is increasing interest from clients, we need to wait and see how the year unfolds before drawing any conclusions. Regarding the compensation ratio, two key points stand out. First, we are attracting skilled bankers who want to join Lazard, likely sensing our momentum. We will take advantage of these opportunities to enhance our talent pool, which may temporarily increase our compensation ratio, even though it has decreased compared to last year. We see these additions as vital for future growth and margin improvement. Second, if the year turns out to be strong, which we need to confirm as it progresses, we might have the chance to reduce our deferral rate, potentially leading to lower compensation ratios in the future. Many factors influence this year beyond just market conditions. I hope this answers your question.

Jim Mitchell, Analyst

Yes. No, that's helpful. And maybe just to your point on investing, I know you've talked about kind of trying to add on net 10 MDs or so every year. Are you sort of on that after sort of the reduction in force, do you see adding that level or better this year?

Peter Orszag, CEO

Yes. As I mentioned earlier, we have hired nine Managing Directors in Financial Advisory, focusing on areas of new strength for us, such as sports media and entertainment, restructuring, and consumer sectors including sponsor and sovereign wealth coverage. We see significant revenue potential there. More Managing Directors have already signed up, and we will be adding more in the coming months. We are also in active discussions with a lot of talent across various sectors. To answer your question, we are on track for our goal of adding 10 to 15 MDs per year, measured from Q1 to Q1. They are on track to meet our objective. Additionally, I’d like to mention that we are also progressing well towards our productivity goal for next year.

Operator, Operator

We'll take our next question from Brendan O'Brien with Wolfe Research Search.

Brendan O'Brien, Analyst

I guess to start, I just want to follow up on the election question asked earlier. While the elections in the U.S. could result in an FCC that is more conducive to M&A activity, it also brings in a far more protectionist regime. So I just want to get a sense as to how this could impact cross-border activity, given this is a big area of strength for your business?

Peter Orszag, CEO

Yes. In a hypothetical situation, we can't predict the outcome of the election, and even if it goes one way, we can't be certain how quickly any of the proposed changes will be enacted. However, to directly address your question, the introduction of significant tariffs could actually boost cross-border mergers and acquisitions. For instance, if the U.S. imposes substantial tariffs, there would likely be increased interest from companies, particularly in Europe, seeking to operate within that tariff barrier to avoid those costs. Thus, we anticipate growing momentum across various scenarios. To be clear, the introduction of tariffs is likely to result in more cross-border M&A activity, rather than less, for the reasons I've described.

Brendan O'Brien, Analyst

Got you. For my follow-up, I wanted to discuss the Asset Management business. Flow trends are still facing challenges with remixing dynamics affecting the fee rate. However, we have noticed a significant shift towards value recently, alongside a steady decline in the dollar. I would like to understand how this has influenced your discussions and when we might expect to see improvements in those flows.

Peter Orszag, CEO

Sure, I'll answer this quickly and then maybe Evan can add additional context. Looking back, a significant factor affecting net flows is the decrease in gross inflows linked to the prolonged elevated interest rate environment I've mentioned earlier. This scenario makes other assets like T-bills in money market funds more appealing and diminishes the appeal of active management, particularly value and relative value strategies. To your point, what we've observed, especially over the past few weeks, is a shift towards smaller cap and value stocks. We believe this is favorable for our business mix. More broadly, I think it indicates that as inflation decreases and the interest rate environment changes, which we expect, the attractiveness of our offerings to investors will only improve.

Evan Russo, CEO of Asset Management

I think you summarized that well, I think I'd add, look, there's definitely been a focus for many of the allocators on the U.S. market, certainly the growth part of U.S. investing styles which has been the outperforming area for the last several years. There's definitely been more allocations focused into those areas and away from global international emerging markets and everything relative value and quality. So yes, the trend that you're bringing up, over the last couple of weeks certainly moves in the right direction. I'd say, look, these things don't happen overnight. This is a short-term momentum shift potentially. We've seen some of these in the past that quickly reverted. So we'll have to wait and see. Although the conversations and the dialogues that we've been having continue to grow across all of our platforms, there's definitely a belief that many of the allocators and portfolios in general are under allocated to some of the stylistic components of value, relative value, and quality and definitely more global and international and emerging markets. So there's definitely under allocation. I'd say we haven't seen the rebalancing as of yet. I think as markets continue to move in that direction that you mentioned and also the rotation from large cap to small cap will definitely start to see more interest across the allocators thinking about portfolio rebalancing, thinking about the opportunities ahead over the next part of the cycle and that should play well to our strengths.

Operator, Operator

We'll take our next question from Devin Ryan with Citizens JMP.

Devin Ryan, Analyst

First question just on the advisory outlook. Obviously, really strong first half of this year. Your revenues appear to be recovering faster than peers. And so I appreciate it's only a couple of quarters. I hate to get too precise on kind of market shares over short periods of time. But how would you think about kind of what's driving the market share gains that you've seen this year? Is it client mix or business mix? Or how much is that? And then do you think you can maintain this type of market share or do you see market share gains from here as the M&A markets kind of broaden out and further normalize?

Peter Orszag, CEO

We have observed strong performance across various areas, including different regions and business segments, both in mergers and acquisitions and other activities. We continue to implement our Lazard 2030 plan, and we anticipate ongoing growth, although it may not be a straight path. However, we believe this growth is sustainable because we have a solid strategy in place, identifying specific opportunities to pursue. There's a renewed sense of ambition within the firm that is yielding positive results, grounded in our culture and supported by clear opportunities for additional revenue in targeted sectors. For instance, we've made notable progress in several areas. The largest focus has been on private capital, where we've increased interactions and made new hires, which are already showing promise. Additionally, we've achieved significant strides in sports media and entertainment, where we've strengthened our leadership; consumer, where we are expanding under strong leadership; and health care, where we've enhanced our team in Europe and are exploring opportunities for market share growth, particularly in biotech sell-side engagements. These are just a few examples of the many prospects we see ahead, and we will continue to concentrate on executing our plan. Although we believe we are progressing faster than anticipated, we will maintain our momentum and aim to stay ahead.

Devin Ryan, Analyst

Okay, terrific. Great context. Just a follow-up here. You had some areas of optimism for Asset Management. It would be great just to hear about any synergies between Advisory and Asset Management that you see I know there's been some discussions around maybe leveraging distribution capabilities with sponsor clients which are also important, obviously, to advisory as you're just talking about. So maybe talk about areas where there's potential to increase synergy to businesses. Maybe where advisers are already benefiting from some of those things? And are there other things you can do within Asset Management or vice versa, just to drive more synergy between the businesses?

Peter Orszag, CEO

This is a significant area for us that has likely been underutilized in the past and that we will pursue vigorously. Clearly, within the framework of existing compliance and regulatory rules, there are substantial opportunities. For instance, the connectivity of our Private Capital Advisory business often aligns with our management distribution team. We can enhance our coordination in that regard. Additionally, the effective, content-rich convening we utilize on the Advisory side to get CEOs together in small groups with substantial content can also be applied effectively to our Asset Management business. A noteworthy example is our geopolitical team, which offers unique insights. Recently, there was a client call on the asset side featuring this team, attracting a large number of clients. This highlights the potential synergies. Generally, the Lazard brand is recognized for its unique insights, in-depth content, and strong connectivity—key attributes in both businesses. We haven't been as proactive in fully leveraging these advantages across both sectors, but that is changing. Your question highlights an important point; this area is a major focus for us and presents a significant opportunity to enhance our revenue and client impact moving forward.

Operator, Operator

We'll take our next question from James Yaro with Goldman Sachs.

James Yaro, Analyst

Maybe I could just start on restructuring. I do appreciate that you've had a much better 2024 year-on-year performance in restructuring as you build out the capabilities, as you talked about, Peter. As we look ahead, what is your outlook for restructuring over the balance of this year? And then is there any risk of the business beginning to tail off in 2025 as rates come down?

Peter Orszag, CEO

I believe the pace of new mandates has slightly slowed, but I expect it to remain high moving forward. There is significant differentiation across sectors, and many firms continue to face challenges with their liabilities, requiring assistance in reorganizing and refinancing. It is beneficial that we have diversified our business to serve both creditors and debtors while expanding beyond restructuring into liability management. We anticipate that more activity will focus on this area, and our team is well-prepared to address these opportunities. We see ongoing activity in the future. In a lower rate environment, activity may decrease compared to a higher rate environment, but we still expect considerable activity ahead.

James Yaro, Analyst

Okay, that's very clear. Maybe just on the non-comp costs, they did step up a fair amount quarter-on-quarter. I recognize that probably a portion of that is related to travel. But maybe you could just speak to whether you see these non-comp levels as a good starting point going forward? Or perhaps was there some sort of seasonality in the quarter?

Peter Orszag, CEO

Mary Ann, take it.

Mary Ann Betsch, CFO

Yes. James, I'll take that one. Well, first, let me echo Peter's comment that we're totally committed to returning to our expense target ratios, including sub-20% for non-comp. So we've made progress, if you look at it on a percentage basis versus last year by about 150 basis points for the quarter. If you're thinking about it in dollar terms, for the second half of the year, I would probably expect a low single-digit increase versus the second half of 2023. And as you point out, that is a reflection of business activity picking up, increased recruiting costs, increased travel, and also investments that we're continuing to make in technology.

Operator, Operator

We will take our next question from Brennan Hawken with UBS.

Brennan Hawken, Analyst

Peter, you've mentioned the strategic priority of growing Private Capital Advisory. Earlier in the call, you indicated that about a little over one-third of your total revenue from private credit comes from advisory revenue. I'm interested in understanding the contribution from the Private Capital Advisory business. Additionally, when considering this business, what do you see as your current strengths, and what capabilities are you initially focused on adding or enhancing?

Peter Orszag, CEO

Yes. I want to clarify that the Private Capital Advisory business, which handles both primary and secondary fundraising for private equity, is just one aspect of our overall engagement with private capital. This aspect contributes to over a third of our advisory revenue, which encompasses all forms of advisory revenue related to capital, whether it's from the PCA business or M&A transactions for private equity funds or Lazard Capital Solutions mandates, and so on. Regarding Private Capital Advisory specifically, we have strengths in both primary and secondary fundraising, and the secondary side is expected to grow significantly. However, this is just one part of our overall relationship with alternative asset managers on a large scale. We now possess the foundational elements of a private capital strategy and coverage effort that need further development. For instance, in our sponsor coverage efforts, we engage with many alternative asset managers. It's crucial to have dedicated coordination to ensure that each party is aware of our activities and that we receive appropriate recognition on their scorecards. Recently, we made a senior hire focused on sponsor coverage for the top alternative asset managers, and this approach has proven very effective, both in terms of internal engagement and positive feedback from leadership at these firms. Consequently, we are planning to extend this approach to the next tier of alternative asset managers and private equity sponsors by asset size, with the goal of eventually covering the full spectrum of private capital in this manner. This is just one example, as we have well-covered the mid-cap sponsor community through our fully integrated middle market business within Lazard, and we are now addressing the middle of that distribution.

Brennan Hawken, Analyst

That's very helpful, Peter. And then Mary Ann, a question for you. Curious to hear your updated expectations on the comp ratio this year. And last quarter, you had expressed an expectation that you'd be looking to 2025 to be moving back towards your longer-term target as quickly as possible. Is that still your expectation thinking about next year?

Mary Ann Betsch, CFO

So if we're thinking about 2025, I would agree with your characterization of my statements that we do intend to get back to the target range as quickly as possible. And also, I would just reiterate that that's going to depend on many factors, including the pace of the revenue rebound. And Peter mentioned the hiring and deferral rates which play a part in future years as well. So I think it's a little early to predict exactly where we're going to land next year, but I think we're going to get back to that range as quickly as we can.

Brennan Hawken, Analyst

Great. And updated expectations for this year?

Mary Ann Betsch, CFO

So this year, I mean, as you know, our practice has been that we kind of set a rate at the beginning of the year and absent some dramatic change in fact, we sort of hold it until the fourth quarter. And I think Peter mentioned the things that we're thinking about relative to the 2024 full year rate and we'll have to see how the rest of the year plays out.

Operator, Operator

We will take our next question from Aidan Hall with KBW.

Aidan Hall, Analyst

Peter, I wanted to ask about Lazard's capabilities and footprint in France. You mentioned in your prepared remarks, Lazard was always at the top of the league table in the first half of the year. So can you share what you're hearing from clients, just given some of the recent geopolitical turmoil? And then just remind us maybe kind of the footprint and talent that the company has here, whether from a capability standpoint or kind of sector coverage.

Peter Orszag, CEO

We've been in Paris for over 150 years, having been founded by three French brothers in New Orleans, which gives us a rich history in the region. Our brand there is distinguished, and this is evident in our strong performance in the first half league table results. Our sector coverage is robust, particularly with the CAC 40, which encompasses various industries such as energy, health care, and consumer goods. Additionally, our success is partly due to our integrated team approach, allowing us to operate seamlessly across Paris, London, and the rest of Europe, aligning with clients’ desires for a cohesive service. The current political situation in France will depend on the forming coalition, but we are committed to guiding our clients through any complexities that arise. France remains a vital source of strength for our firm.

Aidan Hall, Analyst

Great, appreciate the color. And maybe just a follow-up, a clean-up modeling question, Mary Ann. There's a couple of sizable deals that closed right at the start of the third quarter. Any way to quantify maybe any benefit or pull forward that came through in the 2Q results?

Mary Ann Betsch, CFO

Yes. So I would say you've seen the deals. You know that they're a bit chunkier than usual. So we did have more pull forward than we normally would in a quarter. And that's....

Peter Orszag, CEO

Yes. But I would just add that even apart from that, we see continued momentum that not be linear but that we see ongoing traction with clients. So there were some timing issues but we see ongoing activity continuing to pick up in the future.

Aidan Hall, Analyst

Understood. Thanks for taking my questions.

Operator, Operator

Thank you. And there are no further questions at this time. And this will conclude today's Lazard second quarter 2024 earnings conference call. You may disconnect and have a good day.