Moelis & Company (MC) Q2 2018 Earnings Conference Call Transcript

Moelis & Company (MC -1.06%)
Q2 2018 Earnings Conference Call
July 23, 2018, 5:00 p.m. ET

Contents:

• Prepared Remarks
• Questions and Answers
• Call Participants

Prepared Remarks:

Operator

Good afternoon and welcome to the Moelis & Company second quarter 2018 earnings conference call. All participants will be in a listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, you may signal a conference specialist by pressing the * key followed by 0. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. If you would like to ask a question, you may press * and 1 on your telephone keypad. To withdraw the question, please press * then 2. Please note this event is being recorded.

I would like to now turn the conference over to Michele Miyakawa, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Michele Miyakawa -- Head of Investor Relations 

Great. Thank you for joining us for Moelis & Company's second quarter 2018 financial results conference call. On the phone today are Ken Moelis, Chairman and CEO, and Joe Simon, Chief financial Officer.

Before we begin, I'd like to note that the remarks made on this call may contain certain forward-looking statements, including regarding future performance, which are subject to various risks and uncertainties, including those identified from time to time in the risk factors section of Moelis & Company's filings with the SEC. Actual results could differ materially from those currently anticipated. The firm undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements.

Our comments today include to references to certain adjusted or non-GAAP financial measures. We believe these measures when presented together with comparable GAAP measures are useful to investors to compare our results across several periods and to better understand our operating results. The reconciliation of these adjusted financial measures with the relevant GAAP financial information and other information required by Reg G is provided in the firm's earnings release, which can be found on our investor relations website at investors.moelis.com.

I'll now turn the call over to Joe.

Joe Simon -- Chief Financial Officer

Thanks, Michele and good afternoon, everyone. On today's call, I'll go through our financial results and then Ken will discuss our business further. I'm pleased to report another record quarter in which we achieved $220 million of revenues. This represents a 28% increase over the prior year quarter and our highest quarter of revenues on record. Our performance compares favorably to the overall M&A market in which the number of global M&A completions greater than $100 million was down 12% from the prior year quarter.

For the first half, our revenues were $440 million, up 27% from the first half last year. Our revenue growth was primarily attributable to continued strong M&A activity and consistently strong restructuring activity. The level of our M&A activity this quarter was the highest it has ever been and it accounted for more than half of our growth for the quarter. We advised a greater number of clients on both public and private transactions and completed more transactions than in the prior year period.

Restructuring activity also continues to be a stable contributor, which is particularly noteworthy in light of the low default environment as affirmed by our market-leading position on both completed and announced volumes globally in the first half. In addition, we are seeing continued diversification in our revenues as our capital markets, private funds advisory, and financial institutions advisory businesses experience meaningful growth during the quarter.

Overall, we advised a greater number of clients in the second quarter, including a greater number of clients who paid fees over $1 million and we completed a larger number of transactions as compared with the prior year period. As you evaluate our second quarter and year to date results, I want to point out that our second quarter revenues benefited from deal timing the new revenue recognition accounting rules that went into effect in January. Prior to January 1, revenue was generally recognized on the closing date of a transaction.

However, based on the new guidance, fees are to be earned when the transaction meets all materially conditions for completion, even if it closed in a subsequent quarter. While we encourage you not to evaluate our business based on the result of any one quarter, we thought it was important to note this change resulted in the recognition of approximately $37 million in revenue on deals that met all material conditions for completion in June but closed in the first two business days of July.

Moving to expenses, adjusted compensation expense continues to be accrued at 57.5%. Our non-comp ratio was 16.6% in the second quarter and we reported $36.7 million of non-comp expenses. The year over year dollar increase was largely attributable to headcount increases and to the new accounting under which client reimbursements are no longer an offset to non-comp expense.

Our corporate effective tax rate was 12.8% for the second quarter and 8% for the first half. The reduced rate is a function of the new corporate tax rate plus the impact of excess tax benefits related to recent equity events. This tax benefit contributed $0.11 to EPS in the second quarter. Given the timing of our investing events, we do not anticipate similar tax benefits in the second half of the year. Excluding the impact of this discreet benefit, our corporate effective rate was 25.2% for the second quarter and first half. As a reminder, our adjusted net income presentation reflects all of the firm's income tax at our calculated effective corporate tax rate.

Consistent with our commitment to return our excess capital to shareholders, the board declared a special dividend of $1.50 per share, our sixth special dividend to date. This is in addition to the regular quarterly dividend of $0.47 per share. $1.97 will be paid on September 12th to stockholders of record as of August 2nd. We ended the quarter with a strong financial position with no debt and $191 million of cash and liquid investments. I'll now turn the call over to Ken.

Ken Moelis -- Founder, Chairman, and Chief Executive Officer

Thanks, Joe, and hello, everyone. As Joe discussed, we achieved another quarter of record revenues with strength across our diverse advisory businesses. At Moelis & Company, we developed the world's leading bankers and integrated them into a cohesive global network delivering exceptional client service around the world. These bankers, many of whom are homegrown, have the unique ability to communicate and collaborate globally and the result of this is evident in our strong results.

Our activity levels are high. Client conversations remain strong, and we feel good about our business, our positioning, and our prospects for future growth. We ended the quarter with 125 managing directors. This includes five promotes and four new hires year to date, one of which was announced since our last earnings call. Our hiring pipeline remains robust as we continue to look at talent across regions and sectors to enhance our global network.

As many of you know, Rick Leaman has repositioned his role at the firm and recently stepped down from our board of directors. Going forward, this board seat will be filled by our Chief Operating Officer, Elizabeth Crain. Elizabeth is a founding partner of our firm. She has over 25 years of experience in the financial service industry as a banker, principal, and senior executive. We've worked closely together for over 18 years now and she has been instrumental in the success of our firm. I believe she'll be an asset to our board of directors and I look forward to working with her in this role.

With that, let me open it up for questions.

Questions and Answers:

Operator

We will now begin the question and answer session. If you'd like to ask a question, please press * then 1 on your telephone keypad. We do ask if you're using a speakerphone to please pick up the handset before pressing the keys. To withdraw the question, please press * and then 2. Once again, if you'd like to ask a question, please press * then 1.

Our first question today comes from Michael Needham with Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Please go ahead.

Michael Needham -- Bank of America Merrill Lynch -- Analyst

Hey, good afternoon, everyone. So, the first question I have is that $37 million of revenue recognized in 2Q for transactions closed in 3Q, I get the accounting change. I'm wondering were those M&A transactions or did it come from other parts of the business?

Ken Moelis -- Founder, Chairman, and Chief Executive Officer

So, I think predominately M&A transactions or advisory -- it's a handful of transactions. I don't know if it's 100%.

Joe Simon -- Chief Financial Officer

That's right.

Michael Needham -- Bank of America Merrill Lynch -- Analyst

Okay. Thanks. And on the pipeline for new hires, I'm just wondering if you could drill down on that. I think in the past, return on investment has been a key part of the hiring decision for you guys. From what I've heard, the market is getting a little bit more competitive. I'm wondering does that change that return calc at all? Does that evolve your thinking or not? Is it just the platform is attractive and you still have a lot of white space?

Ken Moelis -- Founder, Chairman, and Chief Executive Officer

Kind of all of the above. I think we still have the same high bar. We're not changing our parameters for risk. There's a risk return to that. We're very careful on that. I even feel like maybe we're being more stringent on it and the reason is I think we've become more confident over time that our internal training and promotions system is working and creating our own set of very young, spectacular leading bankers.

We do have a lot of white space. We do have a lot of areas we'd like to fill in. We've become pretty confident that if we don't go outside, we can create those within. It might take a little longer, but the return on that investment is what we measure against going out and looking at it cross-eyed. I don't think we are -- on the margin, it may get a little more difficult, but we're still seeing a great amount of quality people and we're pretty stuck on our own parameters.

Michael Needham -- Bank of America Merrill Lynch -- Analyst

Okay. Great. Thanks, guys.

Operator

Next question today comes from Devin Ryan with JMP Securities. Please go ahead.

Devin Ryan -- JMP Securities -- Managing Director

Hey, great, thanks. Good evening, Ken. Good evening, Joe. I guess first question here on Europe -- last quarter I think you mentioned the announcements there were trending up more than double year over year. So, I'd just love to get an update around the tone in Europe specifically if that momentum is continuing and then just more broadly across the globe, what you guys are hearing about trade tensions and if there's any concern there.

Ken Moelis -- Founder, Chairman, and Chief Executive Officer

Europe continues to be I think down year over year, slightly. By the way, not just us -- I think the number of announced transactions and closed transactions is down pretty significantly year over year in Europe. But we continue to be very optimistic about the talent base that we're hiring there.

Again, I always feel like just the way we created the firm, Europe is three or four years behind the US in terms of development. Reputationally, it just got started later and I think given that we want to train people and have them come up through the system. It's just behind us a little bit in the development of the workforce there, but we're very optimistic about it.

On the trade, I've not seen a big effect on it yet, the trade "wars," trade battles going on. I think regulatory has become somewhat of a minefield out there. There are a few things in regulatory that are surprising people. I think trade has not really affected anything we've seen yet, but I could see it if things continued to escalate. I think you could see it start to impinge on the deal environment.

Devin Ryan -- JMP Securities -- Managing Director

Got it. Okay. Thanks for that. Then just the commentary on restructuring continuing to be healthier -- could you just give a little bit more flavor for what's driving that level of activity? Is it Moelis kind of out-punching competitors or are there some underlying themes that have been driving some of the recent activity?

Ken Moelis -- Founder, Chairman, and Chief Executive Officer

We try not to punch our competitors. Sometimes we have to. But I think it's pretty steady. It's a difficult market for restructuring groups. I'd call it restructuring, kind of a flat number, which is, I think, good for our team. It's difficult. The default rates are low. So, I do think they're doing a good job. A lot of that still continues to be energy. Some of the more commodity-oriented parts of the cycle which continue to drive restructuring, power and energy.

But again, I think the team is doing a good job in a market that's not growing. We're very careful. We want to keep the team and motivate the team. It's hard to predict when, but there will be an upsurge in the default rate. I just don't know what month, much less what year.

Devin Ryan -- JMP Securities -- Managing Director

Got it. Okay. Great. Then just the last one from me -- we're seeing some more of the peers in the space set up these increased financing capabilities, whether it be just advising on various financing options just given the plethora of choices out there, but maybe even more so now setting up kind of facilities of partnerships to provide new capital commitments directly. So, I'd just love some thoughts. I know you guys are quite involved with all the sponsored community and whether that's something to push further into or any thoughts on that as a business.

Ken Moelis -- Founder, Chairman, and Chief Executive Officer

We have a healthy business in advising on capital raising, IPO advice, some of the largest transactions in the world and other things. We do advise. We have no plans and we're going to -- we have no plans to provide facilities and go into the direct distributions even if it were to be done with somebody else's balance sheet.

I have a real healthy fear that that gets to be competitive and sooner or later, you get drawn into putting out a little more risk than you ever thought you would. It happens very incrementally. We love our low capital use business, as you can see by our special dividend. We want to give all the capital back so we don't have to. We don't end up in those businesses. So, the short answer is no, we have no plans to do that.

Devin Ryan -- JMP Securities -- Managing Director

Okay. Great. I'll leave it there. Thank you, Ken.

Operator

Next question comes from Ken Worthington with J.P. Morgan. Please go ahead.

Ken Worthington -- J.P. Morgan -- Analyst

Hi, good afternoon. Thank you for taking my questions. First, Ken, when you're thinking about growth and growing the business, Moelis has gone through periods of specific growth initiatives. I remember when you called out energy and the Mexico alliance and the Japanese alliance.

As you think about where you are in the economic and the market cycle, is now the time to increase the pace of investment, maybe pull back the pace of investment or maintain it? As you think about the next year or two, like 12 to 24 months, are there areas that you can call out where you think you can get the best returns. You can call it out, but you have mentioned certain areas in the past. So, thank you.

Ken Moelis -- Founder, Chairman, and Chief Executive Officer

Ken, it's a good question. M&A and advisory services are pretty strong across the board. I'm asked all the time and I feel like I'm too dumb to figure out which is the sector because I think it's happening almost across all sectors. I can't really think of a sector I wouldn't want to have more talent in. So, I think right now I'd call it a very broad horizontal growth, meaning we could add a person or two in almost every sector, I think. I can't think of one I wouldn't if the right talent came along. That's sort of a broad growth.

Number two, if there was anything where I think of investment spending at Moelis & Company to improve the company, I would almost think it's internal talent development and spending more. We've had programs now where we really spend a lot on our internal training. We take all our promotes down to Wharton for executive education now for four days.

I think we flew in close to 50 or 60 people from around the globe just a month ago to spend time together. I do think that spending that kind of money, what I'm seeing happening with our young managing directors and how well a good integrated culture and network and how effective it makes them with the clients, I do think about actually investing more money in that base function, which is training and acculturating all of our young people into one big network. So, that might be where I'd say the growth would be.

Ken Worthington -- J.P. Morgan -- Analyst

Great. Thank you. Along the same lines, different angle, as you speak with CEOs, to what extent is MIFID or US politics and policy or maybe another factor like the flattening of the yield curve starting to overshadow or come into play against the generally good economic data that we're seeing? I guess are there concerns that seem to be growing in the minds of the senior managers you're talking to who are looking to transact in the marketplace or is it still this very optimistic outlook that you're hearing from FSD CEOs.

Ken Moelis -- Founder, Chairman, and Chief Executive Officer

Good question. I just got back from a trip to Europe when Trump was there. I kind of overlaid part of it. What was interesting to me is from a year ago where I spent a lot of time trying to explain Trump to Germany -- I was in Germany and he insulted, said something about Germany being a captive of Russia and I had a big dinner that night with the CEOs. I thought I'd have to explain it. Nobody even bothered to ask anymore.

They were much more interested in what was going on with Merkel and Germany, Brexit, and Theresa May. There are issues everywhere in the world, what's happening in Italy. I think it's interesting. There's almost an acceptance that you're going to see different things come out of US politics than you've ever seen historically, but I don't think it's changing people's behavior.

And lastly, to what you said, I want to correct you. You said, "Is it just about optimism?" I think there's a healthy dose of both. People think the economy is growing, so there's optimism, but there's a real fear of having the wrong mix of assets. I think it's both. You want to make sure you're set to win. Many of these industries have turned much more into winner take all or top two or three take all industries.

So, yes, there's an optimism there's going to be a good backdrop in GDP, maybe even GDP globally, but there's a real desire by boards and management to examine the assets they have to say, "Are we in the right?" We can't afford to not have the right assets and be positioned to be in the top three in many industries. So, that's what's driving it. I think there's much more focus on that then politics.

Ken Worthington -- J.P. Morgan -- Analyst

Awesome. Okay. Thank you so much. Great answers to my questions. Thank you.

Operator

Next question comes from Administration Dai with KBW. Please go ahead.

Ann Dai -- KBW -- Analyst

Hi, good afternoon. Thanks. Ken, I was just curious about the impact that ratchet fees have had on revenues over the past couple of years. It just feels like maybe they were present and probably somewhat helpful during some of the strong equity markets we saw the last couple of years. I'm just really trying to get a sense of what that contribution was last year. How do we compare that to what we're seeing this year, where we're seeing choppier markets?

Ken Moelis -- Founder, Chairman, and Chief Executive Officer

Good question. I don't have it in front of me, Ann. I'm not sure I would -- look, the structure of your fees, how you create them and what you ask for is a tremendous part of this business, probably one of the most underappreciated. There are certain bankers that just ask for fees. They're valuable. Then there's structuring them and aligning yourself with the client. I don't have an answer to that. I'm not sure we even ever aggregated it.

But I will say this -- we spent a lot of time trying to set up fees that were in alignment with the client and that will reward behavior and execution that's excellent. But I don't know that I can -- I don't know that I could tell you how it affects this year versus last year. The fees are more complicated than you would think in how you approach them. So, I think you should assume they're similar. How's that?

Ann Dai -- KBW -- Analyst

Okay. Appreciate it. Just one for me on capital management -- so, it's now the second year where you've done the special in second quarter. I think last year, it was driven in part by the distribution from Australia. So, I don't know, maybe this year is just strong operating trends and decent levels of cash. Just looking forward, how should we be thinking about that cadence of the special dividend from here? Should we think about it as being triggered by an absolute level of cash on hand or just wanting to be committed to having two specials a year?

Ken Moelis -- Founder, Chairman, and Chief Executive Officer

I'll let Joe walk through the cashflows. Obviously, you look at the revenues year to date. A lot of that translates into additional cash and we also have some taxes. Look, we don't want to do specials every four weeks, but I think what triggers it is when we feel like we're sitting on your capital and we have it invested in 90-day treasuries or 30-day treasuries and that's not optimal and we have enough of it to be material, we give it back. That's the way we want to do it. Joe, I'll let you walk through what led to us coming to this number at this time.

Joe Simon -- Chief Financial Officer

Yeah. It really does come back to revenues. What we talked about was $440 million in the first half. Between that and the new tax rates created the substantial amount of cash that was in excess of our regular dividend. So, it was thought rather than waiting until the end of the year or some other arbitrary period, it was a good idea to distribute it at this point.

Ann Dai -- KBW -- Analyst

Okay. Thank you both. Appreciate it.

Operator

Next question comes from Jim Mitchell with Buckingham Research. Please go ahead.

Jim Mitchell -- The Buckingham Research Group -- Analyst

Hey, good afternoon. Maybe just talk a little bit about your diversification efforts. Clearly, it seems like fund advisory has been increasingly contributing to the story. How do we think about where you see the biggest opportunity set to kind of expand your footprint going forward? Is it fund placement advisory? Is it just private equity firms finally putting some dry powder to work and your work there to develop relationships? How do we think about that opportunity set?

Ken Moelis -- Founder, Chairman, and Chief Executive Officer

On a dollar amount, the growth is always going to come out of M&A. I actually believe the incremental growth in just our M&A business was bigger than the total businesses right now of PFA, Private Funds Group, and some of that. I think the way we think about it is we want to be involved with companies that are doing very important transactions that are like M&A. Restructuring is a life-threatening moment.

By the way, a private equity group raising their funding is probably the most significant thing they do. If they don't get the money, there is no business. Those are moments in time when relationships matter. That's number one most important to us. And expertise and judgement come into effect and then you can get paid because it's critical. Time is critical to each of those -- M&A, restructuring, private funds, and risk advisory is a similar thing, by the way.

I do think our PFA group is on a great trend. It's a business that we like and we'll continue to grow that. But really, on an absolute dollar amount, I think our M&A business is the driver of incremental revenue in dollar size and I guess if we ever hit a recession, you can see restructuring have a surge. But for right now, it's going to be basically M&A.

Jim Mitchell -- The Buckingham Research Group -- Analyst

Okay. That's helpful. Just maybe a follow-up question on the timing and the change in accounting, Joe -- is it kind of limited to deals that are only a couple of days post the quarter? Could there be examples where it goes further than that? I think for us, we're kind of evaluating the data, have sort of a sense of what deals we should look at that may fall a day or two after the quarter, what kind of a time frame you could give us would be great.

Joe Simon -- Chief Financial Officer

Yeah. Again, there is no set in stone, but I think the practical application of the accounting is that deals that close in the first day or two of the succeeding quarter are likely to require recognition in the previous quarter. I think in our experience, the probability that recognition conditions would be appropriate as of the prior quarter as time goes, that diminishes dramatically with the passage of time. Those conditions just diminish as time passes.

Jim Mitchell -- The Buckingham Research Group -- Analyst

Okay. That's helpful. As you said, it was the first two business days, right?

Joe Simon -- Chief Financial Officer

That's right.

Jim Mitchell -- The Buckingham Research Group -- Analyst

Okay. Thank you.

Ken Moelis -- Founder, Chairman, and Chief Executive Officer

It's interesting. Just so you know -- those are deals that go into the final week, sometimes the final ten days. We're not sure they're going to close on June 30th or July 1st, but that happens to us every quarter and that's why we ask you to not look at us on a quarterly basis because we don't know if those things are going to close on June 30th or July 1st or one day later. So, it's very hard for us to project quarterly as well.

Joe Simon -- Chief Financial Officer

I think the other important point is that we're still measuring approximately 90 days' worth of production. This isn't like pulling in extra days or anything. It's just if there's been a time shift.

Jim Mitchell -- The Buckingham Research Group -- Analyst

Absolutely. We just like to be able to try to be as accurate as we can. That's all. Appreciate it.

Joe Simon -- Chief Financial Officer

Fair enough.

Operator

Next question comes from Jeff Harte with Sandler O'Neill. Please go ahead.

Jeff Harte -- Sandler O'Neill -- Analyst

Hey, good afternoon, guys. A couple from me -- on the accounting-driven revenue recognition benefits, I'm probably over-simplifying -- is it as simple as saying $37 million of 3Q revenues that we would have expected got pulled in 2Q '18?

Joe Simon -- Chief Financial Officer

When you think about the old accounting, but again, this accounting came into effect on January 1. There was a whole transition process that happened as of the year-end. So, all we've done is reset the calendar starting with 2018. I think we're looking at the same -- again, we're looking at a similar time period for purposes of measuring production.

Ken Moelis -- Founder, Chairman, and Chief Executive Officer

One of the things to be aware of -- we can't predict the effect on 13 because again, we're going to have the extra two days. October 1st and October 2nd -- we don't know when these things will -- that's why we've never said to look at us on a quarter because same thing can happen on October 1st or 2nd or it could not. The same thing could happen this quarter. These could have closed the 30th or the 1st. As Joe said, it's a new 90 days July 2nd to October 2nd is the new third quarter.

Jeff Harte -- Sandler O'Neill -- Analyst

Okay. And on the expense side, it looks like you accrued comp against if not comp as well. That fell into the quarter too? I guess what I'm getting at is last quarter, you kind of mentioned $35 million, $36 million a quarter non-comp run rate. Does this affect that going forward in the back half of the year, what you would expect?

Joe Simon -- Chief Financial Officer

No. I think those two things are independent of one another. I think that non-comp, the $35 million to $36 million, absent increases in headcount and extraordinary deal related charges I think remains a reasonable estimate. This is also in accounting. This isn't just affecting Moelis. This is a global standard.

Jeff Harte -- Sandler O'Neill -- Analyst

Okay. On the special dividend timing, it was touched on earlier, but is it unusual going forward to consider special dividends before year-end tax position is known? I look at last year you have the gains. This year, the tax cut and Jobs Act, there were kind of some unsual things. There was the decision to pay out a special dividend or not, kind of a real time decision going forward as cash levels build. Do you anticipate us coming back to it more likely later in the year or the future?

Ken Moelis -- Founder, Chairman, and Chief Executive Officer

Go ahead, Joe.

Joe Simon -- Chief Financial Officer

Yeah. I think the answer is that I think we can measure -- so, we earmark cash for bonuses and taxes and other element regular dividends and then we obviously can compute what the excess is to the extent that the number is a significant number, as Ken indicated, rather than trapping it in treasury bills, for our account, we decide that periodically, it's better in the investor's hand. So, we'll periodically make that decision. I don't think there's going to be a true rhythm, necessarily. It could be twice a year, once a year. It's fact and circumstances-dependent.

Jeff Harte -- Sandler O'Neill -- Analyst

Okay. Thank you.

Operator

Our next question comes from Brennan Hawken with UBS. Please go ahead.

Brennan Hawken -- UBS -- Analyst

Good afternoon, guys. Thanks for taking the question. Just one more from my end -- most of my questions have been asked and answered -- on capital, you guys have really returned a great deal of capital via these special dividends. It's been really successful. As the liquidity in Moelis shares has improved, have you considered shifting to make the capital returns more of a balance between share buybacks and specials or have the reviews of specials or the popularity of the specials among your shareholder base led you to conclude that you're going to stick with the specials for the foreseeable future?

Ken Moelis -- Founder, Chairman, and Chief Executive Officer

We debate what to do with the capital. I have to say so far, we think that it has been well-received in that we've created a nice float for the common stock and we've found a very efficient way to distribute all the capital back without having to tie markets, just give it back in to everybody pro rata. That may not always be -- Brennan, we'll figure that out going forward, but for the time being, we've been very happy with the way it's worked. It can change, but up to now, we think it's been a good way to do it.

Brennan Hawken -- UBS -- Analyst

Yeah. I appreciate that, Ken. There wasn't any implied criticism with the question. I just wanted to understand how you guys were thinking about it.

Ken Moelis -- Founder, Chairman, and Chief Executive Officer

We think about it. It just seems to be the dominant method right now because it's worked well. It can change. Things can change. We have not made a corporate policy that this is the way to do it. But we do think getting the capital back to our shareholders quickly and efficiently and not sitting on it is a really good way to go. We'll think about it going forward and we may change, but for right now, this seems to be the best way.

Brennan Hawken -- UBS -- Analyst

Okay. Sounds good. Thanks for the color, Ken.

Operator

At this time, this will conclude today's question and answer session. I'll now turn the conference back over to Ken Moelis for any closing remarks.

Ken Moelis -- Founder, Chairman, and Chief Executive Officer

Thank you. I appreciate all of the support you have given us and the analysis and you getting on the call and asking good questions. I hope we can continue to perform. So, I appreciate the call. We'll see you in three months.

Operator

The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.

Duration: 35 minutes

Call participants:

Michele Miyakawa -- Head of Investor Relations 

Ken Moelis -- Founder, Chairman, and Chief Executive Officer

Joe Simon -- Chief Financial Officer

Michael Needham -- Bank of America Merrill Lynch -- Analyst

Devin Ryan -- JMP Securities -- Managing Director

Ken Worthington -- J.P. Morgan -- Analyst

Ann Dai -- KBW -- Analyst

Jim Mitchell -- The Buckingham Research Group -- Analyst

Jeff Harte -- Sandler O'Neill -- Analyst

Brennan Hawken -- UBS -- Analyst

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