John Weinberg: Our view on restructuring has been consistent, which is it’s a very strong business for us, and it’s continuing that way. And higher for longer, obviously, will impact the business in a positive way. But even when we thought that rates were going to go down, a very big part of our business is liability management. There are many companies that really have capital structures built on very low interest rate environments and some of those are coming up for refinancing. And so the liability management side of the business is going to continue strong. And really from the prospects that we see in our backlogs continuing along at the pace where we feel very comfortable that they are going to continue to perform at a high level. So as we look at our projections and we’re looking at how things are going, we believe the business will continue along the path of being quite strong.
James Yaro: Thank you.
Operator: [Operator Instructions] We will go next to Ryan Kenny with Morgan Stanley.
Ryan Kenny: Hi. Good morning. Thanks for taking my question. Just wanted to dig in a little bit on the comp ratio side and the comment around aiming to improve this year, is that an improvement from last year’s level or from the first quarter level? And how should we think about the likelihood of comp ratio maybe decreasing in the back half of the year as revenues pick up?
Tim LaLonde: Right. So, let me just expand my commentary a little bit around the comp ratio. And so we talked about it being kind of generally similar to our full year estimate. Based on what we know today and more importantly, it’s our best estimate of the appropriate accrual for the quarter. But ultimately, where our comp ratio will finish the year is going to depend heavily on the timing and magnitude of improvement in revenue, among other factors, which also of course, include things like headcount, market level of comp for non-partners and so on. But we are committed to making progress on our comp ratio. We are intending to balance that objective with our plan to continue building the firm. And as I have said, where we land at the end of the year is largely going to be a function of the strength of the revenue in the latter part, which is not perfectly knowable at this point.
Ryan Kenny: Thanks.
Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from Aidan Hall with KBW. Please go ahead.
Aidan Hall: Great. Thanks for taking my question. Just wanted to dig in on the recruiting commentary, it sounds like conversations remain robust. But I guess can you just give us a better sense of your expectations on the SMD hiring front as it relates to the remainder of the year? And as we think of building pipelines across the industry, how that might maybe elongate some of the recruiting timelines? Thanks.
John Weinberg: Thanks for the question. And obviously, we focused a great deal on recruiting and really making sure that we continue the momentum of the organization and our growth. This – the pipeline is, from our standpoint for us is robust, although I would say that there is – it’s really hard to know exactly where that’s going to come out. It’s recruiting and the numbers of people we bring in is more of an output than an input, meaning that really, we have a very strong set of dialogues going on with some very talented people. And it’s hard to know which ones are going to actually land. I would say that if you are trying to figure out where we are is we are going to continue to look for A+ talent in areas where we think there is real significant growth ahead for us.
We have always – what we said in the past is 4 to 8, that last year, as you know, we went to 11. We are not going to be constrained by any number, but we think we will have a good year this year, and we are very much in the middle of many different dialogues that we think are with very strong people. So, I think you can assume that we are not going to change dramatically.
Aidan Hall: Great. Appreciate the color.
Operator: Thank you. We do have a follow-up question from James Yaro with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
James Yaro: Thanks for taking the follow-up. Just a quick one on the advisory revenue quarter-on-quarter decline this quarter, so I think this did appear somewhat weaker than the publicly available data, which is all that we have to go on. And I think your quarterly kind of is a little bit weaker than some of the peers that have reported so far. So, maybe you could just help us understand what the drivers were, was that M&A, or was there some other business that slowed down relative to fourth quarter? And then anything you could just add on the pull forward of revenue into the fourth quarter and then again into the first quarter, and maybe that would help explain some of those moving parts.
John Weinberg: Sure. Well, as you know, the business is quite lumpy for us. And what you really will see if you look at it quarter-to-quarter is hard, because several big transactions or three or four big transactions can change a lot. And I would just generally say activity levels for us are high. Our backlogs are robust and strong. And really, anywhere you look across our systems, that dialogues internally are very, very active. And so I would say that from our standpoint, there is tremendous activity inside. And even if you look at things like engagement letters or conflict checks very strong. Last quarter, Europe had a lumpy quarter before, which was strong. In the last quarter, they were relatively weaker. But I would say that, that would – that’s not an indication of the strength of the business.
It’s just a fact of what happens. So, I would – if you are really thinking about how to think about us, I think you should really assume that we are feeling quite constructive about how we are going to go. And as we said, we could see a real – a build over the balance of the year and in the next year in terms of both announcements and revenue.
James Yaro: Okay. That’s very clear. Thank you.
Operator: Thank you. And we will take our next follow-up question from Brennan Hawken with UBS. Please go ahead.
