Lazard Ltd (NYSE:LAZ) Q1 2022 Results Conference Call April 28, 2022 8:00 AM ET
Company Participants
Alexandra Deignan - Head of Investor Relations and Corporate Sustainability
Kenneth Jacobs - Chairman & CEO
Evan Russo - Chief Financial Officer
Peter Orszag - CEO, Financial Advisory business
Conference Call Participants
Devin Ryan - JMP Securities
Brennan Hawken - UBS
Brendan O'Brien - Wolfe Research
James Yaro - Goldman Sachs
Michael Brown - KBW
Jeff Harte - Piper Sandler
Operator
Good morning, and welcome to Lazard's First Quarter 2022 Earnings Conference Call. Today's call is being recorded. [Operator Instructions]
At this time, I would like to turn the call over to Alexander Degen, Lazard’s Head of Investor Relations and Corporate Sustainability. Please go ahead.
Alexandra Deignan
Good morning, and welcome to Lazard's Earnings Call for the first quarter of 2022. I'm Alexandra Deignan, the company's Head of Investor Relations and Corporate Sustainability. In addition to today's audio comments, we have posted our earnings release and an investor presentation, which you can access 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 or achievements 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 these forward-looking statements.
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 Kenneth Jacobs, Lazard's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer; and Evan Russo, Chief Financial Officer. Evan will start the discussion with an overview of our financial results, then Ken will provide his perspective on the outlook for our business. After that, we will open the call to questions. I will now turn the call over to Evan.
Evan Russo
Good morning. Today, we reported an 8% increase in operating revenue for the first quarter and strong performance by both our businesses. In Financial Advisory, first quarter revenue of $388 million increased 22% from last year's period, reflecting continued momentum, particularly across Europe and North America. Despite heightened geopolitical risks and concerns about inflation and supply chain challenges, our engagement with clients has remained robust and activity remains at historically high levels. Regarding restructuring, we are seeing a continuation of lower levels of deal activity, but we are experiencing an increased level of dialogue with clients.