Kenneth Jacobs: Sure. Great questions. Spot on. Look, on the comp ratio going into 2023, first we don’t set it until first quarter. Here I just make the note, which I’ve been pretty consistent and I’ve spoken on is that when revenues go down GAAP, Compensation becomes more challenged €“ GAAP ratios become more challenging because you, sort of have fixed charges against declining revenues and we saw that in the fourth quarter. To the extent that we see a drop in revenue in the first half of next year, that also poses a challenge. Flipside is, you guys can tell our compensation practices by the deferral rates that we show in the earnings release and you can also see it in what we do on awarded compensation. The disconnect or the site separation between awarded and GAAP this year really just reflects the investments we’ve made in the business over the course of the last year, and the fact that we’re trying to keep them in place depending on how the cycle unfolds.
So, this is going to be like for all of our peers going to be an interesting first half when it comes to thinking about projections for ratios for the year and a lot of it ultimately will depend on how the year unfolds.
Steven Chubak: Thanks for that color Ken. And just for my follow-up because you were talking about some of the investments that you’re making in the business. You’ve been making a lot of investments on the technology side. We’ve certainly seen that translating to some level or elevated non-comp inflation. Can you talk about your ability to bend the cost curve on the non-comp side? How should we think about non-comp inflation as we look out to 2023?
Kenneth Jacobs: Yes. So, non-comp inflation this year, when you cut through, it’s just a function of a couple of things. We first rent, we’ve got a couple of new facilities in Paris and we’re also taking a new offices in London so there’s a little bit of elevation that’s going to come from that, long overdue in both cases and such. The second component clearly was T&E, obviously much more travel in a post-pandemic world. And unfortunately, a lot of inflation in travel expenses. I think some of that inflation will abate over the course of this year if inflation continues to abate across the economy, but let’s wait and see what happens there. We’re very focused on that. And then third of course is IT. I think there was quite a buildup in IT expense over the course of the last year, several years to modernize some of the things we’re doing on the advisory side, asset management side, and then importantly on .
I think at this point, we’re probably through most of those investments and I think you’ll start to see that abate over the next couple years or so and obviously this was over the last several years a very tough environment for people in that area. And I think we’re finding many of those pressures abating as well. So that should help here over the course of the next year or so. So, this is something needless to say, we’re very focused on and I expect there’ll be some progress on that.
Steven Chubak: Very helpful color, Ken. Thanks for taking my questions.
Kenneth Jacobs: Sure. Thank you.
Operator: This now concludes the Lazard conference call. You may hang up. Have a great day.
