About Lazard Ltd

Lazard Ltd (Lazard) operates as a financial advisory and asset management company. The company operates in North and South America, Europe, the Middle East, Asia and Australia. The company has long specialized in crafting solutions to the complex financial and strategic challenges of a diverse set of clients around the world, including corporations, governments, institutions, partnerships and individuals. Principal Business Lines The company focuses primarily on two business segments: Financial Advisory and Asset Management. Financial Advisory The company's Financial Advisory business offers corporate, partnership, institutional, government, sovereign and individual clients across the globe a wide array of financial advisory services regarding strategic and mergers and acquisitions (M&A) advisory, capital markets advisory, shareholder advisory, restructuring and liability management, sovereign advisory, geopolitical advisory and other strategic advisory matters and capital raising and placement. The company focuses on solving its clients' most complex issues, providing advice to key decision-makers, senior management, boards of directors and business owners, as well as governments and governmental agencies, in transactions that typically are of significant strategic and financial importance to them. The company continues to build its Financial Advisory business by fostering long-term, senior-level relationships with existing and new clients as their independent advisor on strategic transactions and other matters. The company seeks to build and sustain long-term relationships with its clients rather than focusing simply on individual transactions, a practice that enhances its access to senior management of major corporations and institutions around the world. The company emphasizes providing clients with senior-level focus during all phases of transaction analysis and execution. To develop new client relationships, and to develop new engagements from historical client relationships, the company maintains an active dialogue with a large number of clients and potential clients, as well as with their financial and legal advisors, on an ongoing basis. The company has gained a significant number of new clients each year through its business development initiatives, through recruiting additional senior investment banking professionals who bring with them client relationships and through referrals from directors, attorneys and other third parties with whom it has relationships. The company maintains a major local presence in the United States (the U.S.), the United Kingdom (the U.K.) and France, with offices across the world as a part of its global network. In addition to seeking business centered in the regions, the company historically have focused in particular on advising clients with respect to cross-border transactions. Services Offered The company advises clients on a wide range of strategic and financial issues. When the company advises clients on the potential acquisition of another company, business or certain assets, its services include evaluating potential acquisition targets, providing valuation analyses, evaluating and proposing financial and structural alternatives and rendering, if appropriate, fairness opinions. When the company advises clients that are contemplating the sale of businesses, assets or an entire company, its services include advising on the sale process, providing valuation analyses, assisting in preparing an information memorandum or other appropriate sale materials and rendering, if appropriate, fairness opinions. The company also identifies and contacts selected qualified potential acquirors and assists in negotiating and closing the proposed sale. As appropriate, the company also advises its clients regarding potential financial and strategic alternatives to a sale, including recapitalizations, spin-offs, carve-outs and split-offs. The company frequently provides advice with respect to the structure, timing and pricing of these alternatives. With respect to companies in financial distress, the company provides services to it, creditors or other interested parties, which may include reviewing and analyzing the business, operations, properties, financial condition and prospects of the company, evaluating debt capacity, assisting in the determination of an appropriate capital structure, assisting in structuring and effecting the financial aspects of amendments to debt documents or exchange offers or refinancings, evaluating financial and strategic alternatives and assisting and participating in negotiations with affected entities or groups. When it assists clients in connection with shareholder advisory and corporate preparedness matters, the company's services may include reviewing and analyzing the business, operations, properties, financial condition and prospects of the company, providing insights on its shareholders and advising on defense measures and strategic alternatives potentially available to it. The company's advice may relate to a broad range of matters including M&A and capital markets transactions and activist situations. When it assists clients in connection with their capital structure, the company typically reviews and analyzes structural alternatives, assists in long-term capital planning and advise and assists with respect to rating agency discussions and relationships, among other things. When it assists clients in raising private or public market financing or capital, the company's services may include assisting clients in connection with securing, refinancing or restructuring bank loans or other debt, securing venture capital and other financial investor funding, originating and executing, or participating in, public underwritings and private placements of securities, and originating and executing private placements of partnership and similar interests in alternative investment funds such as leveraged buyout, mezzanine or real estate focused funds and single or multi-asset continuation funds. The company is at the forefront of providing independent advice to governments and governmental agencies in connection with economic developments. Lazard's Sovereign Advisory Group has advised a number of countries and institutions with respect to sovereign debt and other financial matters. Staffing The company staffs each of its assignments with a team of quality professionals who have appropriate product, industry and geographic expertise. As of December 31, 2023, the company's Financial Advisory segment had 210 managing directors and 1,393 other professionals and support staff. Industries Served and Practice Areas The company seeks to offer its services across most major industry groups, including, in many cases, sub-industry specialties. Managing directors and professionals in the company's M&A practice are organized to provide advice in various major industry practice areas, such as consumer; financial institutions; health care and life sciences; industrials; power and energy/infrastructure; real estate; technology; and telecommunications, media and entertainment. These groups are managed locally in each relevant geographic region and are coordinated globally, which allows the company to bring local industry-specific knowledge to bear on behalf of its clients on a global basis. In addition to its M&A and Restructuring and Liability Management practices, the company maintains specialties in the following distinct practice areas within its Financial Advisory business, such as government and sovereign advisory; capital structure debt and equity advisory; shareholder and corporate preparedness advisory; fundraising and arranging liquidity for third-party alternative investment funds; corporate finance and other services, including private placements, underwritten offerings related to its Financial Advisory business and transactions involving the exchange or issuance of securities; and geopolitical advisory. The company endeavors to coordinate the activities of the professionals in these areas with its M&A industry specialists in order to offer clients customized teams of cross-functional expertise spanning both industry and practice area expertise. Strategy The company's focus in its Financial Advisory business is on investing in its intellectual capital through senior professionals who has strong client relationships and industry expertise; increasing its contacts with existing clients to further enhance its long-term relationships and its efforts in developing new client relationships; developing new client relationships; expanding the breadth and depth of its industry expertise and selectively adding or reinforcing practice areas, such as its Capital Markets Advisory, Shareholder Advisory, Sovereign Advisory and Geopolitical Advisory groups; coordinating its industry specialty activities on a global basis and increasing the integration of its industry experts in M&A with its other professionals; selectively bolstering its existing presence in certain local markets; broadening its geographic presence by adding new offices where opportunities arise; investing in its technology infrastructure and data science capabilities to enhance its business; and deploying its intellectual capital, strong client relationships and other assets to generate new revenue streams. In addition to the investments made as part of this strategy, the company's Financial Advisory business may benefit from external market factors, including demand for independent, sophisticated financial advice; recapitalization and related activities in developed and emerging markets; high corporate cash balances; attractive equity valuations, stable credit conditions and generally positive market sentiment; favorable levels of cross-border M&A and large capitalization M&A, two of its areas of historical specialization; strategic market and industry catalysts, including energy transition, technology disruption, life sciences evolution and infrastructure investment; and favorable tax, regulatory and similar reform. Asset Management The company's Asset Management business offers a broad range of global investment solutions and investment and wealth management services in equity and fixed income strategies, asset allocation strategies, alternative investments and private equity funds to corporations, public funds, sovereign entities, endowments and foundations, labor funds, financial intermediaries and private clients. The company's investment teams construct and manage portfolios using various techniques and investment philosophies, including traditional fundamental research and analysis and quantitative tools. The company's top ten clients accounted for 29% of its total assets under management (AUM) as of December 31, 2023, with no client individually contributing more than 10% of its Asset Management segment net revenue. Approximately 85% of the company's AUM as of December 31, 2023 was managed on behalf of institutional and intermediary clients, including corporations, labor unions, public pension funds, insurance companies and banks, and through sub-advisory relationships, mutual fund sponsors, broker-dealers and registered advisors, and approximately 15% of its AUM was managed on behalf of individual client relationships, which are principally with family offices and high-net worth individuals. The company's Asset Management business maintains offices in New York, Amsterdam, Bordeaux, Boston, Brussels, Chicago, Dubai, Dublin, Frankfurt, Geneva, Hamburg, Hong Kong, London, Luxembourg, Lyon, Madrid, Melbourne, Milan, Montreal, Nantes, Paris, Riyadh, San Francisco, Seoul, Singapore, Sydney, Tokyo, Toronto, Vienna and Zurich. Investment Philosophy, Process and Research The company's investment philosophy is generally based upon a fundamental security selection approach to investing. Across many of its products, the company applies three key principles to investment portfolios, such as select securities, not markets; evaluate a company's financial position, outlook, opportunities and risks, together with its valuation; and manage risk. In searching for investment opportunities, many of its investment professionals follow an investment process that incorporates several interconnected components that may include fundamental analysis; quantitative analysis; accounting analysis; security selection and portfolio construction; risk management; and environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors. In its Asset Management business, the company conducts investment research on a global basis to develop market, industry and company-specific insights and evaluate investment opportunities. Many of the company's global equity analysts, located in its worldwide offices, are organized around global industry sectors. Investment Strategies The company's Asset Management business provides equity, fixed income, cash management and alternative investment strategies to its clients, paying close attention to its clients' varying and expanding investment needs. The company offers various product platform of investment strategies, such as Equity, Fixed Income and Cash Management, and Alternative. In addition to the primary investment strategies, the company provides other asset management services to its clients, including asset allocation and other investment advisory services, as well as locally customized investment solutions. In many cases, the company also offers both diversified and more concentrated versions of its products. These products are generally offered on a separate account basis, as well as through pooled vehicles. Distribution: The company distributed its products through a broad array of marketing channels on a global basis. Marketing, sales and client service efforts are organized through a global market delivery and service network, with distribution professionals located in cities including New York, Amsterdam, Bordeaux, Boston, Brussels, Chicago, Dubai, Frankfurt, Geneva, Hamburg, Hong Kong, London, Luxembourg, Lyon, Madrid, Melbourne, Milan, Montreal, Nantes, Paris, Riyadh, San Francisco, Seoul, Singapore, Sydney, Tokyo, Toronto, Vienna and Zurich. The company has developed a well-established presence in the institutional asset management arena, managing assets for corporations, labor unions, sovereign wealth funds and public pension funds around the world. In addition, the company manages assets for insurance companies, savings and trust banks, endowments, foundations and charities. The company is a leading firm in managing mutual funds, sub-advisory funds and separately managed accounts for many of the world's largest broker-dealers, insurance companies, registered advisors and other financial intermediaries. Strategy The company's strategic plan in its Asset Management business is to focus on delivering superior investment performance and client service and broadening its product offerings and distribution in selected areas in order to continue to drive improved business results. Over the past several years, in an effort to improve the company's Asset Management business' operations and expand its Asset Management business, it has focused on enhancing its investment performance; improved its investment management platform by adding a number of senior investment professionals, including portfolio managers and analysts; continued to strengthen its marketing and consultant relations capabilities, including by optimizing its distribution globally; expanded its product platform, including through the addition of long/short equity strategies, sustainable strategies, quantitative equity strategies and thematically oriented strategies; invested in its technology infrastructure and data science capabilities to enhance its business; and continued to expand its geographic reach where opportunities arise. The company intends to maintain and supplement its intellectual capital to achieve its goals. The company routinely reassesses its strategic position and aims to add capabilities potentially through acquisitions or other transactions, including the opportunistic hiring of new employees, in order to further enhance its competitive position. The company engages in selected alternative investments and private equity activities. Regulation In the U.S., certain of the company's subsidiaries are subject to such regulations promulgated by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (the SEC) and/or the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA). Standards, requirements and rules implemented throughout the European Union are broadly comparable in scope and purpose to the regulatory capital and customer protection requirements imposed under the SEC and FINRA rules. European Union directives also permit local regulation in each jurisdiction, including those in which the company operates, to be more restrictive than the requirements of such European Union-wide directives. The SEC, FINRA and other U.S. and non-U.S. regulatory organizations may examine the activities of, and may expel, fine and otherwise discipline the company and its employees. The laws, rules and regulations comprising this framework of regulation and the interpretation and enforcement of existing laws, rules and regulations are continually changing. The company's principal the U.S. broker-dealer subsidiary, Lazard Frères & Co. LLC (LFNY), through which it conducts most of its the U.S. Financial Advisory business, is registered as a broker-dealer with the SEC and FINRA, and as a broker-dealer in all 50 U.S. states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. As such, LFNY is subject to regulations governing most aspects of the securities business, including regulations regarding minimum capital retention requirements, record-keeping and reporting procedures, relationships with customers, experience and training requirements for certain employees and business procedures with firms that are not members of certain regulatory bodies. Lazard Asset Management Securities LLC (LAM Securities), a subsidiary of Lazard Asset Management LLC (LAM LLC), is registered as a broker-dealer with the SEC and FINRA and in all 50 U.S. states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. The company's the U.S. broker-dealer subsidiaries, including LFNY, are subject to the SEC's uniform net capital rule, Rule 15c3-1 under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the Exchange Act), and the net capital rules of FINRA, which may limit its ability to make withdrawals of capital from its broker-dealer subsidiaries. The uniform net capital rule sets the minimum level of net capital a broker-dealer must maintain and also requires that a portion of its assets be relatively liquid. FINRA may prohibit a member firm from expanding its business or paying cash dividends if it would result in net capital falling below FINRA's requirements. In addition, the company's broker-dealer subsidiaries are subject to certain notification requirements related to withdrawals of excess net capital. The company's broker-dealer subsidiaries are also subject to regulations, including the USA PATRIOT Act of 2001, which impose obligations regarding the prevention and detection of money-laundering activities, including the establishment of customer due diligence and other compliance policies and procedures. Failure to comply with these requirements may result in monetary, regulatory and, in certain cases, criminal penalties. Certain U.K. subsidiaries of Lazard Group, including Lazard & Co., Limited (LCL), Lazard Fund Managers Limited and Lazard Asset Management Limited, which the company refers to as the U.K. subsidiaries, are authorized and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (the FCA), and are subject to various rules and regulations made by the FCA under the authorities conferred upon it by the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000, as amended by the Financial Services Act 2012. Certain of the company's Asset Management subsidiaries are registered as investment advisors with the SEC. As a registered investment advisor, each is subject to the requirements of the Investment Advisers Act of 1940, as amended (the Investment Advisers Act), and the SEC's regulations thereunder. Such requirements relate to, among other things, the relationship between an advisor and its advisory clients, as well as general anti-fraud prohibitions. LAM LLC serves as an investment advisor to several U.S. mutual funds which are registered under the Investment Company Act of 1940, as amended (the Investment Company Act). The Investment Company Act regulates, among other things, the relationship between a mutual fund and its investment advisor (and other service providers) and prohibits or severely restricts principal transactions between an advisor and its advisory clients, imposes record-keeping and reporting requirements, disclosure requirements, limitations on trades where a single broker acts as the agent for both the buyer and seller, and limitations on affiliated transactions and joint transactions. LAM Securities serves as an underwriter or distributor for mutual funds and private funds managed by LAM LLC and its subsidiaries (collectively, LAM), and as an introducing broker to Pershing LLC for unmanaged accounts of certain of LAM LLC's private clients. As a result of certain changes effected by the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (the Dodd-Frank Act) related to the regulation of over-the-counter swaps and other derivative instruments, LAM and certain of its subsidiaries have registered with the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (the CFTC) and the National Futures Association (the NFA), and are subject to certain aspects of the U.S. Commodity Exchange Act and the regulations thereunder and to the rules of the NFA. The CFTC and the NFA have authority over the laws, rules and regulations related to commodities (including the over-the-counter swaps and derivatives markets), and regulate the company's relationship with clients who trade in these instruments. The U.S. Commodity Exchange Act and the regulations thereunder also impose additional record-keeping and reporting requirements and disclosure requirements on LAM and its subsidiaries. Compagnie Financière Lazard Frères SAS (CFLF), the company's French subsidiary under which asset management and commercial banking activities are carried out in France, is subject to regulation by the Autorité de ContrÔle Prudentiel et de Résolution (ACPR) for its banking activities conducted through the company's Paris-based banking subsidiary, Lazard Frères Banque SA (LFB). The investment services activities of the Paris group, exercised through LFB and other subsidiaries of CFLF, primarily Lazard Frères Gestion SAS (LFG), also are subject to regulation and supervision by the Autorité des Marchés Financiers. In addition, pursuant to the consolidated supervision rules in the European Union, LFB, in particular, as a French credit institution, is required to be supervised by a regulatory body, either in the U.S. or in the European Union. In 2013, the company and the ACPR agreed on terms for the consolidated supervision of LFB and certain other non-Financial Advisory European subsidiaries of the company (referred to herein, on a combined basis, as the combined European regulated group) under such rules. Under this supervision, the combined European regulated group is required to comply with minimum requirements for regulatory net capital. Additionally, the combined European regulated group, together with certain of the company's European Financial Advisory entities, is required to perform an annual risk assessment and provide certain other information on a periodic basis. In addition, the Central Bank of Ireland, the Japanese Ministry of Finance and Financial Services Agency, the Korean Financial Supervisory Commission, the Securities and Futures Commission of Hong Kong, the Monetary Authority of Singapore, the Australian Securities & Investments Commission, the Dubai Financial Services Authority, the Italian Companies and Stock Exchange Commission and the German Federal Financial Supervisory Authority, among others, regulate relevant operating subsidiaries of the company and also have capital standards and other requirements broadly comparable to the rules of the SEC. The company's business is also subject to regulation by other non-U.S. governmental and regulatory bodies and self-regulatory authorities in other countries in which it operates. The company is also subject to various anti-bribery, anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing laws, rules and regulations in the jurisdictions in which it operates. The U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, for example, generally prohibits offering, promising or giving, or authorizing others to give, anything of value, either directly or indirectly, to a non-U.S. government official in order to influence official action or otherwise gain an unfair business advantage, such as to obtain or retain business. Similar rules and regulations exist in other jurisdictions in which it operates. In addition, the company is required to comply with economic sanctions and embargo programs administered by the U.S. Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control and by similar governmental agencies and other authorities worldwide. History Lazard Ltd was founded in 1848. The company was incorporated in 1848.