Evercore Inc at Goldman Sachs U.S. Financial Services Conference Transcript

The following is excerpted from the question-and-answer section of the transcript.

Question: James Yaro - The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. - Analyst : Okay. John, you're coming up on five years now at the helm of Evercore and it's almost a $13 billion market cap company. Could you give us a scorecard on how the last few years have gone? What surprised you most Maybe what you are looking most forward to for the next three to five years?

Question: James Yaro - The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. - Analyst : Excellent. Maybe let's just talk a little more about the future and how you plan to grow from here. You talked about 30 hires and promotes. Maybe just you could talk about when you look at from here, where is the best place to invest in your mind?

Question: James Yaro - The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. - Analyst : Let's think really long term. I think one of the questions that I get a lot is whether there's some efficient horizon for advisory market share for firms like South. Maybe you could just talk about your plans to take share and whether it is sort of an efficient horizon and whether that can continue from here?

Question: James Yaro - The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. - Analyst : Great. So in the past, you've talked about four to eight net senior MDs or senior MD hires in a given year as your target. You're obviously a much bigger firm. So maybe you could just update us on how you're thinking about the growth trajectory of the business?

Question: James Yaro - The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. - Analyst : Excellent. Maybe let's turn a little bit to election implications in the current environment. It's been about a month since the election. So I wanted to start first with antitrust and enforcement, which has obviously become a lot more aggressive over the past four years in the US, and it's obviously very aggressive in Europe. Given the expected personnel changes at the DOJ and the FTC, could you touch on what that could mean for your business? And then are there specific sectors, tech and cross-border, for example, where they could remain very elevated scrutiny? REFINITIV STREETEVENTS | www.refinitiv.com | Contact Us consent of Refinitiv. 'Refinitiv' and the Refinitiv logo are registered trademarks of Refinitiv and its affiliated companies. DECEMBER 10, 2024 / 3:40PM, EVR.N - Evercore Inc at Goldman Sachs U.S. Financial Services Conference

Question: James Yaro - The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. - Analyst : Two other key potential implications from the student administration are tariffs and potentially corporate tax reform. Maybe you could talk about how corporate tax reform could affect your business and M&A more broadly? And on the tariff side, how do you think about the impacts on M&A? Will this drive more activity or less activity and perhaps specifically if you could just comment on the cross-border market?

Question: James Yaro - The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. - Analyst : Okay. Maybe just one more bigger picture post election question. When you're in the boardroom today, over the past month, the uncertainty has gone around the election, has that catalysed more discussions? And do you think that could lead to more M&A in the near term? REFINITIV STREETEVENTS | www.refinitiv.com | Contact Us consent of Refinitiv. 'Refinitiv' and the Refinitiv logo are registered trademarks of Refinitiv and its affiliated companies. DECEMBER 10, 2024 / 3:40PM, EVR.N - Evercore Inc at Goldman Sachs U.S. Financial Services Conference

Question: James Yaro - The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. - Analyst : Excellent. Maybe as you think about the longer-term trajectory of this cycle, obviously, the last cycle was much curtailed and accelerated with perhaps some of those animal spirits you just alluded to. But how do you think about what -- over what time period we would see a normalized M&A market? I know it's hard to predict that.

Question: James Yaro - The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. - Analyst : Great. Let's talk about sponsors a little bit, which is obviously a so far in this recovery, they previously in 2021, 2022 almost got to 40% of the M&A market. Right now, over the past few years, they're less than 30%. Where do you think about the normalized sponsor mix as a percentage of M&A? Is it 40%? Or do we need rates to go back to zero and over what time period do you think that particular part of the market could normalize?

Question: James Yaro - The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. - Analyst : Think of an interesting perspective on this because you don't lend. But when you think about the fact that private credit markets are open, public debt markets seem to be open to some extent or at least have improved, how much of a structural market share shift has there been to private credit? And then what do you think is holding back the syndicated markets from improving?

Question: James Yaro - The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. - Analyst : Excellent. Let's turn perhaps to the equities part of your business, the advisory strategy is fairly clear as we discussed the beginning of the conversation. But maybe you could just comment on the growth opportunity in equity capital markets, research and sales and trading?

Question: James Yaro - The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. - Analyst : Excellent. You touched on it a little bit before. But on the secondaries advisory franchise, you obviously have a fairly unique perspective given your dominant market share in the business. The business does appear to be growing about 40% per year, which is pretty rapid. Could you characterize the outlook for growth in that business? And when we see perhaps a more normalized mix of private equity exits, whether that could change the growth rate ?

Question: James Yaro - The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. - Analyst : One last one on the business on the restructuring side, which you alluded to a little bit. Obviously, this has been a liability management driven restructuring cycle liability management. It seems to be continuing to pick up and has done for really two years now as we head towards what looks like a period of fairly healthy macroeconomic strength and lower short interest rates, do you think restructuring can remain as good and perhaps -- how do you think about the shape of the eventual decline there ? REFINITIV STREETEVENTS | www.refinitiv.com | Contact Us consent of Refinitiv. 'Refinitiv' and the Refinitiv logo are registered trademarks of Refinitiv and its affiliated companies. DECEMBER 10, 2024 / 3:40PM, EVR.N - Evercore Inc at Goldman Sachs U.S. Financial Services Conference

Question: James Yaro - The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. - Analyst : Excellent. So maybe turning to everyone's favourite topic, which is the comp ratio. You have historically delivered comp ratios in the high 50's, putting -- even putting aside 2021. Help us think about the trajectory of the comp ratio relative to where it is today and what you think normalized comp ratios look like?

Question: James Yaro - The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. - Analyst : Very clear. You have slowed capital returns for the past few years, which is clearly a weaker -- in what is clearly a weaker environment. Based on your comments, it sounds like we should expect a much healthier backdrop for you and the revenue base when you think about the factors that determine whether -- when you accelerate buybacks and increase your dividend, how do those change? Or what are you thinking about as we look ahead to '25 and '26? REFINITIV STREETEVENTS | www.refinitiv.com | Contact Us consent of Refinitiv. 'Refinitiv' and the Refinitiv logo are registered trademarks of Refinitiv and its affiliated companies. DECEMBER 10, 2024 / 3:40PM, EVR.N - Evercore Inc at Goldman Sachs U.S. Financial Services Conference

Question: James Yaro - The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. - Analyst : Okay. Great. So I think we're almost at time here. So maybe I'll just turn it over to you, John, any final thoughts as we head into 2025?

Question: James Yaro - The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. - Analyst : Okay. All right. With that, we're out of time. Thank you so much, John. Hopefully, we can do it again next year.