Evercore Inc. (NYSE:EVR) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Evercore Inc. (NYSE:EVR) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript October 25, 2023

Operator: Good morning, and welcome to the Evercore’s Third Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call. Today’s call is scheduled to last about one hour, including remarks by Evercore management and the question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] I will now turn the call over to Katy Haber, Managing Director of Investor Relations and ESG at Evercore. Please go ahead.

Katy Haber: Thank you, operator. Good morning, and thank you for joining us today for Evercore’s third quarter 2023 financial results conference call. I’m Katy Haber, Evercore’s Head of Investor Relations and ESG. Joining me on the call today is John Weinberg, our Chairman and CEO; and Tim LaLonde, our CFO. After our prepared remarks, we will open up the call for questions. Earlier today, we issued a press release announcing Evercore’s third quarter 2023 financial results. A discussion of our results today is complementary to the press release, which is available on our website at evercore.com. This conference call is being webcast live in the For Investors section of our website and an archive of it will be available for 30 days beginning approximately one hour after the conclusion of this conference call.

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During the course of this conference call, we may make a number of forward-looking statements. Any forward-looking statements that we make are subject to various risks and uncertainties and there are important factors that could cause actual outcomes to differ materially from those indicated in these statements. These factors include, but are not limited to, those discussed in Evercore’s filings with the SEC, including our annual report on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q and current reports on Form 8-K. I want to remind you that the company assumes no duty to update any forward-looking statements. In our presentation today, unless otherwise indicated, we will be discussing adjusted financial measures, which are non-GAAP measures that we believe are meaningful when evaluating the company’s performance.

For detailed disclosures on these measures and the GAAP reconciliations, you should refer to the financial data contained within our press release, which is posted on our website. We continue to believe that it is important to evaluate Evercore’s performance on an annual basis. As we have noted previously, our results for any particular quarter are influenced by the timing of transaction closings. I will now turn the call over to John.

John Weinberg: Thank you, Katy, and good morning everyone. I want to start this morning by addressing the crisis in the Middle East and to acknowledge the profound sadness we are all feeling for the innocent victims. At Evercore we live by our values and I want to emphasize that terrorism and acts of hate must be condemned. Over the past quarter we’ve seen a continuation of the improved market conditions that began over the summer. Internally, we see client activity levels tracking at an elevated pace and moderately increasing confidence levels across management teams and in boardrooms, greater financing accessibility albeit at higher costs, and a slow return to equity capital markets activity. The normalization of market activity takes time, but we believe these positive indicators are a first step towards an improving backdrop which should provide broad based benefit to many of our markets.

Clearly, market uncertainty remains driven by increased geopolitical tensions as well as higher rates. We do not expect the positive shift in activity levels and market sentiment seen over the past quarter to translate into meaningfully improved results in the near-term. That said, barring an unexpected significant shift in the macro environment, we expect activity levels to continue to build in 2024. While it is still early days, we are seeing this reflected in stronger backlogs similar to our last quarter. As discussed last quarter, the current environment has presented one of the strongest hiring opportunities seen in our firm’s history and we have capitalized on it. We’ve made significant investments in talent this year, our largest SMD hiring year ever.

When paired with an improving market backdrop, we believe these investments as well as our ramping SMD hires and promotes from the last two years, all in more than 40 ramping SMDs will drive significant productive capacity and help us build a stronger foundation for growth over the medium and long-term. Nine of our 11 new SMD hires year-to-date have started and are working at Evercore. These new SMD hires have joined areas which we have identified as strategically significant, including TMT both in the U.S. and Europe, sponsor coverage, business services, industrials, real estate and capital advisory. We will continue to engage in discussions with other strong candidates, but we believe our 2023 new hire plans have largely been completed. As we build our recruiting pipeline for 2024, we remain steadfast in the execution of our strategic initiatives, which I’ve outlined on past calls.

Now I will briefly discuss the quarter. Our third quarter results, while up sequentially, reflect the muted market backdrop as merger activity has remained challenged and the recent improvement in market sentiment has yet to have a substantial impact on announcement and completion activity. In our global advisory business, we’ve advised on several transformative transactions including notably this week Chevron $60 billion acquisition of Hess and in the quarter WestRock on its $20 billion merger with Smurfit Kappa, Danaher on its spin-off of Veralto, as well as Bristol-Myers Squibb’s $4.8 billion acquisition of Mirati. Our European advisory group experienced strong activity levels, including Indebt Advisory. Additionally, we continue to make strong progress with our sponsor coverage efforts.

We’re excited for what this expanded group will accomplish over time, especially as the collaboration with our private capital advisory and fundraising businesses will continue to drive synergies. We see momentum building across our sponsor related businesses. The private capital advisory and fundraising businesses were resilient in the quarter, highlighting the strength of our market leading franchises. Continuation fund activity has persisted at an elevated pace and new business activity is strong, while the broader fundraising environment remained muted, our private funds business had a better quarter relative to a year ago. Our Strategic, Defense and Shareholder Advisory business had another busy quarter as activist campaigns continued at elevated levels.

Restructuring remains strong similar to what we saw in the second quarter where the activity levels driven by liability management and distressed financing advisory assignments. In our underwriting practice corporates continued with regular wave follow on particularly in biotech and traditional clean tech energy. The third quarter saw an opening of the IPO market. In the quarter, we served as an active book runner on the second largest biotech IPO year-to-date for RayzeBio. We also were an active book runner on the largest biotech overnight follow on offering this year for Madrigal Pharmaceuticals. Our overall ECM market share continued to rise, a testament to the strength and growth of our business. In our equities franchise, we are pleased to have been awarded for the second year in a row a number one ranking on the weighted basis in Institutional Investors All America Equity Research Survey.

We also had the most #1 ranked analyst on Wall Street for the first time ever. Lastly, in Wealth Management, our assets under management declined modestly in the quarter. Both performance and client retention rates continue to be strong. Before I turn it over to Tim, I want to wrap up with a few thoughts. 2023 has undoubtedly been a challenging year for our industry. Despite the operating backdrop, we’ve remained focused on purposefully executing on our strategic plans by continuing to invest in our franchise, pushing to strengthen and broaden our coverage and geographic reach, building out our product and execution capabilities and continuing to enhance our intellectual capital. We are hopeful that 2024 will be a better year for the market and in turn Evercore.

Our client contact remains active and robust across our businesses. We’re excited for the opportunities and improving environment will present for us. With that, let me turn it over to Tim.

Tim LaLonde: Thank you, John. Our third quarter results show sequential improvement compared to the second quarter and do not yet meaningfully reflect the early stage improvements in the environment. We are seeing internal client activity levels discernibly picking up from earlier this year. However, as I mentioned on our last quarterly call, the road to significantly improved financial results is a gradual one, as there is a time lag that exists between client dialogues and announcements and then between announcements and completions. Additionally, we have taken advantage of an attractive partner recruiting market with a record SMD hiring year, yet coupled that with disciplined headcount management across all areas of the firm as we strive to increase our productivity.

I will now discuss our third quarter financial results. For the third quarter of 2023, net revenues, net income and EPS on a GAAP basis were $570 million, $52 million and $1.30 per share respectively. My comments from here on will focus on non-GAAP metrics which we believe are useful when evaluating our results. Our standard GAAP reporting and a reconciliation of GAAP to adjusted results can be found in our press release, which is on our website. Our third quarter adjusted net revenues of $576 million declined 1% versus the third quarter a year ago, but were up 14% sequentially. Third quarter adjusted operating income and adjusted net income of $83 million and $55 million decreased 39% and 42% respectively versus the third quarter of 2022. Adjusted earnings per share of $1.30 decreased 41% versus the prior year period.

Our adjusted operating margin was 14% for the third quarter. Turning to the businesses. In investment banking, third quarter adjusted advisory fees of $468 million declined 4% year-over-year compared to $489 million of advisory fees in last year’s third quarter. Sequentially, advisory revenues were up 25% as market activity levels across our various advisory businesses were modestly stronger compared to last quarter. Third quarter underwriting fees of $31 million were up 7% compared to the third quarter of 2022. We are seeing some improvement in the market with a number of significant transactions more recently. Commissions and related revenue of $49 million in the third quarter was down slightly year-over-year, which is a respectable outcome given that market trading volumes and volatility have been lower than last year’s levels.

Third quarter adjusted asset management and administration fees of $19 million increased 9% year-over-year. This is primarily due to our third quarter AUM of $11.3 billion, which is up 13% year-over-year. Third quarter adjusted other revenue net was a gain of approximately $10 million, reflecting approximately $15 million of interest income earned on our cash balance due to higher short-term rates, partially offset by a $5 million loss in our investment funds portfolio, which is used as a hedge for our DCCP commitments driven by a decline in equity market values in the quarter. Turning to expenses, the adjusted compensation ratio for this third quarter is 68%. As I discussed at some length on last quarter’s earnings call, our compensation ratio continues to be meaningfully impacted by the revenue environment.

The amortization of prior year deferred compensation awards, the onboarding of our new senior hires, five of whom have joined the firm since the middle of the third quarter, as well as the market level for compensation. Given that many of these new SMDs have joined late in the year and we recognize their 2023 compensation from their start through year end, we would expect to see additional upward pressure on the fourth quarter compensation ratio. Based on what we know today and incorporating our current best estimates about fourth quarter revenue and market compensation rates, we would expect the comp ratios of these past two quarters to be generally representative of our full year compensation ratio estimates. Note that variations in the actual fourth quarter revenues or market compensation levels could impact our future quarter and year end comp ratios in either direction.

Shifting to non-compensation expenses, in the third quarter, our non-comp expenses were $102 million, up 12% from a year ago. The year-over-year increase reflects some increased rent expense for new leases, space related to required relocation of part of our corporate group and higher information services fees. Additionally, our non-comp expenses from a year ago reflected an expense reversal which decreased our non-comp expense materially at that time, resulting in a larger increase year-over-year. I would note that our non-comp expense on a per head basis is still modestly below where it was in 2019, the pre-COVID year and modestly above a year ago. We expect our non-comps to be similar to our second and third quarter levels for the remainder of the year.

We are continuing to diligently monitor and manage our non-comp expenses. Our adjusted tax rate for the quarter was 27.6%, virtually identical to the 27.4% tax rate from a year ago. Turning to the balance sheet, as of September 30, our cash and investment securities totaled approximately $1.6 billion, which is up from $1.5 billion at the end of last quarter. We continue to maintain a strong cash position, taking into consideration the current economic and business environment, cash needs for the implementation of our strategic initiatives including hiring plans and preserving a solid financial footing. Year-to-date, we have returned a total of $490 million to shareholders through dividends and repurchases of 3 million shares at an average price of $128.97.

Our third quarter adjusted diluted share count is $42.8 million. As a reminder, that is down about 5 million shares from where we were two years ago. In the past three years, we have returned to shareholders cash equating to more than one third of our market cap. We continue to maintain a strong capital position and we remain committed to our philosophy of returning to shareholders cash not needed to implement our strategic plan and to provide financial stability for our stakeholders. As John mentioned, we are encouraged by the early signs of an improved market backdrop. That coupled with the SMDs who joined us in the third quarter, those still to join and SMDs who were promoted or hired in the last couple of years, position Evercore for greater revenue and earnings leverage over the medium to longer term.

With that, we’ll now open the line for questions.

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Q&A Session

Operator: Thank you. [Operator Instructions] Our first question is from Devin Ryan with JMP Securities. Your line is open. Devin, please make sure that you’re not self-muted.

Devin Ryan: Oh, sorry about that. Good morning, John and Tim, sorry about that. Yes, first, I guess the question maybe make it a two-part since I have one here. So I guess first off, the advisory SMD count declined by 5, so just wanted to get any color there since you guys are hiring, just to make sure I understand that dynamic. And then the other part of the question, we’re getting a lot from your clients recently, just about expense inflation and what that means for normalized margins for Evercore and the industry more broadly and obviously, appreciate the biggest driver that’s going to be revenues or not in a normal revenue environment today, but how are you guys thinking about kind of normalized margins over time? Have we structurally shifted higher or should I guess structurally shifted lower because of some of the expense inflation or do you think we can get back to levels that you guys have been at historically? Thanks.

Tim LaLonde: Yes and thanks, Devin.

John Weinberg: Let me take the first question.

Tim LaLonde: Okay, go ahead, John, I’ll take the second.

John Weinberg: In terms of the advisory SMDs what we have said to the market, what we’ve said to you all is that we are in the mode of hiring very high quality talented people, but at the same time we’re managing our headcount and there are people who are shifting out and there are people who we are bringing in. We’ve obviously been aggressive about promoting high quality talented people. We’ve promoted 24 people to SMD internally in the last two years and as you as you know this year we’re hiring from the outside 11. What we’ve really done is we’ve basically tried to be disciplined and so this is just a really an execution of what we said we were going to do which is we are making sure that we are bringing in high quality people and those people who are — who for all different reasons may not be the right fit, they’re shifting out.

Tim LaLonde: Sure. And let me just add one thing to that and then I’ll comment a little bit on the expenses, and that’s that we’ve always guided research community and our investors to look at our firm on a multiple corridor and multiple year time span in order to assess what we’re doing. And so if you look at our partner headcount, and the most recent number is, of course, 137, in the advisory business, that number three years ago would have been 107. So it’s plus 30 and up about 28%. If you looked at that number compared to where we were in 2021, our peak revenue and earnings year, we’re up about 20%. Now, on John’s commentary about also being disciplined about headcount management over that same period of time, while our headcount increased — pardon me, our partner headcount increased 20%, our overall headcount increased 13.6%.

And so what you can see there is some evidence of our striving to increase our productivity per person and per banker. Now, turning for a moment to the expenses, what you would see in our numbers is a modest amount of inflation impact. But interestingly, if you look at our non-comps, for instance, on a per head basis, they’re actually slightly lower still on a per head basis than they were in 2019 and only marginally higher than a year ago. And so we’re optimistic about what we’ve been able to and may be able to continue to do with respect to inflation. In terms of returning to normal margins, certainly in our business, the largest impact on our margins is generated by revenues. And so when you see the market turning with respect to transaction announcements and subsequently increasing revenues, you can expect significant margin improvement.

But I think it’s too soon to predict exactly when that will occur and what the magnitude will be and the timeframe for returning to a more normalized margin structure.

Devin Ryan: Got it. Okay, terrific. Thanks, guys.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question will come from Brennan Hawken with UBS. Your line is open.

Brennan Hawken: Good morning, John. Good morning, Tim. Thanks for taking my questions.

John Weinberg: Morning.

Brennan Hawken: Hi. I’d love to start, Tim, on your comment on the comp ratio. I think I got it, but just want to clarify, and based on my Bloomberg chat, I think there’s a few other people who are a little confused, too. So, I believe what you suggested was that full year is going to look like the last couple of quarters, which would mean, given 1Q in the low 60s, that we’re going to be looking probably at the fourth quarter at a comp ratio in excess of 70%. Did I hear that correctly?

Tim LaLonde: Well, hi, Brennan. And I certainly didn’t say in excess of 70%, but I understand the mathematics that might lead you to that conclusion. And so the first point I’d make is, it’s impossible for us to precisely predict what the comp ratio will be in the fourth quarter or for the full year, because it’s so dependent on the revenues. And as we all know, as one approach is year end, sometimes there are certain significant fees that fall inside the quarter and sometimes they fall outside the quarter. And so I want to be careful about providing guidance that’s too precise. It is the case that there’s some natural upward pressure on the latter part of this year, which of course is the fourth quarter. And that’s due to the fact that as you know, we’ve announced 11 partner hires this year, 10 of which will arrive before year end.

And of those 10, six are arriving anytime from mid-August through year end. And as we don’t start accruing for those people until they arrive at the firm, what that does do is, put some additional pressure on the fourth quarter. But I still — I would say our best estimates are what I said in my prepared remarks, which is something that would look generally like what we saw in the second and third quarter for the full year.

Brennan Hawken: Yes, all that’s totally and completely fair and it’s going to make answering my next question even more challenging, but I’m going to try anyway. So you guys do have the benefit of having a decent forward look, just given how long it takes to close deals and what a great franchise you have in large cap M&A in particular. So, given what you’re seeing, and at least based upon expectations for the beginning of 2024, when I go through the model and take my best guess at where your fixed comp base works out at and all of this it’s hard for me not to see continued upward pressure, even giving a pretty substantial ramp in advisory revenues and a decent recovery here in 2024. And I continue to kind of like shake out at an upward – at an above historical range comp ratio for 2024.

Of course, there’s a ton of uncertainty still embedded in 2024. We have no idea what the magnitude of the ramp and maybe even given maybe I’m not giving enough of a ramp, which could end up helping to drive that comp ratio down. But is it reasonable to think that at least for the first half of the year we’d probably be continuing to deal with an elevated comp ratio until we can get these revenues really moving strongly and back to the potential that you can achieve?