Moelis & Company (NYSE:MC) Q1 2023 Earnings Conference Call April 26, 2023 5:00 PM ET
Company Participants
Matt Tsukroff - Investor Relations
Ken Moelis - Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Joe Simon - Chief Financial Officer
Conference Call Participants
Devin Ryan - JMP Securities
Ken Worthington - JPMorgan
Matt Moon - KBW
Brendan O’Brien - Wolfe Research
Ben Rubin - UBS
James Yaro - Goldman Sachs
Ryan Kenny - Morgan Stanley
Operator
Good afternoon and welcome to the Moelis & Company Earnings Conference Call for the First Quarter of 2023. To begin, I’ll turn the call over to Mr. Matt Tsukroff. Please proceed.
Matt Tsukroff
Good afternoon and thank you for joining us for Moelis & Company’s first quarter 2023 financial results conference call. On the phone today are Ken Moelis, Chairman and CEO and Joe Simon, Chief Financial Officer.
Before we begin, I would like to note that the remarks made on this call may contain certain forward-looking statements, which are subject to various risks and uncertainties, including those identified from time-to-time in the Risk Factors section of Moelis & Company’s filings with the SEC. Actual results could differ materially from those currently anticipated. The firm undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements. Our comments today include references to certain adjusted financial measures. We believe these measures, when presented together with comparable GAAP measures are useful to investors to compare our results across several periods and to better understand our operating results. The reconciliation of these adjusted financial measures with the relevant GAAP financial information and other information required by Reg G is provided in the firm’s earnings release, which can be found on our Investor Relations website at investors.moelis.com.
I will now turn the call over to Ken.
Ken Moelis
Good afternoon, everyone. Our first quarter adjusted revenues of $185 million were down 38% from the prior year. The decrease in revenues is primarily attributed to a significant slowdown in the global M&A market, which experienced a 46% decline in completed transactions during the same period. Despite seeing more activity in M&A at the beginning of the year, the impact of the recent banking crisis has elongated processes again. I’m often asked what we would have done differently if we go back to the great financial crisis in 2007 and 2008 when we founded the firm, and my answer is always the same. We were extremely aggressive and I wish we had been more aggressive in adding talent to our business during that unique moment in time.