Perella Weinberg Partners (NASDAQ:PWP) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

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Unidentified analyst: So just one for me. Thinking about the backdrop and the environment, obviously, there’s a lower number of new activity making across the finish line. And you’ve also spent a lot of this past year or so cleaning up the capital structure and having that behind you. So just kind of curious from here, how we should be thinking about your willingness to grow potentially inorganically? And maybe how we should think about it areas of potential focus with respect to that kind of potential inorganic growth?

Andrew Bednar: Sure, Matt. Thanks for the question. So a couple of things about just organic growth, and then I’ll speak inorganic growth. So we have almost one-third of our partnership is on the platform less than three years. And so we think that represents significant embedded growth within the firm today. And this is an area where we invest, and it’s part of the reason we took up our comp ratio, because we need to invest behind our teams and that’s our CapEx. And we think that represents significant future revenue that’s already on the platform. Our workforce management will be continuous, as we again drive the productivity of our teams, but also look to the outside to expand our client footprint. So in industries where it’s adjacent to our core six industry groups, we will continue to add talent that increases our clients’ footprint. We’ll also selectively hire in areas that enhance our product capabilities. And that’s both here in the US as well as in Europe.

Unidentified analyst: Okay. Great. And then one for Gary. I appreciate the non-comp growth guidance, especially ’23. I know a lot of that is baked in just given the duplicative rent expense and the higher D&A of the build-outs. But just kind of curious what kind of operating environment and revenue backdrop we should be considering that’s kind of underlying that that 15 to 20% year-on-year growth guidance, just wondering on what environment in particular we’re looking at for that assumption?

Gary Barancik: I think we’re what we’re really assuming in that is that, we’re not assuming a dramatic change in the operating environment, but we are assuming, this is a very attractive business to be in over the long-term and we’re continuing to invest in the business with that in mind. So while we — we’ve certainly tried to moderate some of our non-comp expenses for things that will not impact growth in the business, we actually are still continuing to invest in things that support our people in some areas of technology and some of that is driven there. Some of that is inflation. And some of it is just headcount growth, which has been reasonably significant as we’ve invested in our business here over the last few years.

Unidentified analyst: Okay. Great. Thanks, guys.

Andrew Bednar: Thank you

Operator: Thank you. This concludes the Q&A portion of today’s call. I would now like to turn the call back over to Andrew Bednar for any additional or closing remarks.

Andrew Bednar: Great. Thank you, operator. And thank you all for joining. I also just wanted to recognize the tremendous performance of our team, all of our partners, all the rest of our teammates that have worked extremely hard during a very challenging operating environment and continue to deliver for our clients and for all of our stakeholders. So thank you, and we’ll talk to you on our next call.

Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes the Perella Weinberg Partners full year and fourth quarter 2022 earnings call and webcast. You may disconnect your line at this time and have a wonderful day.

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