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DATE

Friday, August 1, 2025 at 1:00 p.m. ET

CALL PARTICIPANTS

Chief Executive Officer — Andrew Bednar

Chief Financial Officer — Alex Gottschalk

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TAKEAWAYS

Revenue: $155 million in reported revenue for Q2 2025, with $28 million attributed to closings recognized under accounting principles from early Q3 2025 transactions.

Year-to-Date Revenue: $367 million in revenues for the first half of 2025, down 2% year-over-year despite different revenue composition and lower reliance on large transactions.

Adjusted Compensation Margin: Adjusted compensation margin was 67% of revenue for Q2 2025, reflecting ongoing investment in senior talent.

Adjusted Non-Compensation Expense: Adjusted non-compensation expense was $36 million for Q2 2025, marking a meaningful decrease from both the prior year and previous quarter, due primarily to lower litigation-related costs.

First-Half Non-Compensation Expense: $86 million in non-compensation expenses for the first half of the year, up 9.5% from the same period last year

Adjusted Tax Rate: Adjusted tax rate was 30% for the first half of 2024, in line with expectations for the remainder of the year.

Capital Return: $24 million returned to equity holders in Q2 2025 via RSU net settlement, open market share purchases, and dividends; 1.7 million Class A shares were repurchased in the first half of 2025.

Total Capital Returned Since Public Listing: Over $675 million has been returned to equity holders since entering the public markets four years ago, including the repurchase of more than 32 million shares and share equivalents.

Balance Sheet: $145 million in cash and no debt at the end of Q2 2025.

Dividend: $0.07 per share declared for the quarter.

Share Count: 63 million Class A common shares and 25 million partnership units outstanding at the end of Q2 2025.

Headcount Growth: 70 partners as of today, expected to reach at least 76 by year-end 2025, By year-end, 12 new partners and nine managing directors will have joined the platform, marking the strongest senior hiring year since the company went public.

Devon Park Advisors Acquisition: Acquisition of Devon Park Advisors announced, creating a private funds advisory business and immediately diversifying client and revenue mix, especially in alternative asset management segments.

Operating Indicators: Active engagement count and gross revenue pipeline both reported at peak levels, cited by management as leading indicators of business strength.

Pipelined Mandates: Growing number of client engagement letter executions and "busy conditions on the ground." across geographies and industries, according to CEO Bednar.

SUMMARY

Perella Weinberg Partners (PWP 4.15%) delivered first-half revenues of $367 million in 2025 compared with the first half of 2024, while broadening its revenue base away from large, concentrated transactions. Management highlighted a strengthened business environment post-April and May, as well as a marked acceleration in senior recruiting, internal promotions, and platform scale. The firm’s acquisition of Devon Park Advisors establishes a new business line in private funds advisory and provides immediate diversification of both client coverage and revenue exposure. Management cited peak engagement activity, strong client pipeline momentum, and ongoing investments in hiring and platform expansion but noted continued difficulty in converting mandates into announced deals within standard reporting periods.

CEO Bednar said, "Our engagement letter executions are growing, and they are up." directly referencing expanding client activity.

The acquisition of Devon Park Advisors was described as a "significant impact on how we think about and pursue opportunities with our alternative asset manager clients." reinforcing the strategic intent to shift the company’s client and revenue mix.

Management reported that the restructuring segment, integrated into capital solutions, is "trending toward a record year" and was not interrupted by volatility in April or May.

Bednar stated that around one-third of partners by year-end will have joined within the past three years, contributing to embedded future revenue growth potential.

Capital return remains a stated priority, though management described current strategy as temporarily favoring business investment over increased return to shareholders.

INDUSTRY GLOSSARY

GP-led secondaries: Secondary transactions in private equity funds initiated by general partners, typically to provide liquidity to existing investors while allowing continuation of selected portfolio assets.

Full Conference Call Transcript

Andrew Bednar: Thank you, Taylor, and good morning. Today, we reported second quarter revenues of $155 million and first half revenues of $367 million. While we experienced some variance in reported results this past quarter, the leading indicators in our business, specifically our active engagement count and our gross revenue pipeline, are at peak levels. Our first half revenues were flat year-over-year, though with a notable difference in composition. In the first six months of 2024, we had two transactions account for over 35% of revenue, which contributed to our record second quarter last year. In 2025, our business broadened out by industry, product, and geography, and we recorded a higher average fee per engagement.

These are encouraging trends reflecting improved client targeting, prudent business selection, and the overall value add we deliver to our clients. Without a doubt, we ended the quarter in a better environment than we experienced in April and May. Our teams are extremely busy with the level of client dialogue and related mandates growing, though conversion into announcements, especially for large transactions, has been taking longer. Today, we are still seeing some transactions sit on the edge of announcement due to a variety of factors, including some financing challenges, valuation gaps between buyers and sellers, or in certain industries, operating weakness due to a more cautious consumer.

That said, with many active mandates currently in the red zone, we are confident that a broader acceleration in announcements is coming. We are business builders no matter the environment. To that end, we have made significant investments in our senior talent through both hiring and promotions. We have more than made up for what I noted last year was a gap in senior hiring. Between now and year-end, we have six partners and three managing directors joining the firm, with expertise including software, healthcare services, consumer and retail, insurance distribution, UK takeovers, machinery and capital goods, and fintech.

In July, we promoted six managing directors to partner, each a hard-earned and very deserving recognition of the contributions they have made to our business. By year-end, 12 new partners and nine new managing directors will be on our platform, representing our best hiring year on record since entering the public markets. This creates a significant source of future revenue and demonstrates that Perella Weinberg Partners continues to be a destination of choice for top-tier talent across the industry. We also significantly expanded our capabilities with today's announced acquisition of Devon Park Advisors, a premier private funds advisory firm with specific expertise in GP-led secondaries.

This acquisition creates our private funds advisory business, establishes our position in a large and fast-growing segment of the market, and enables us to expand our coverage of alternative asset managers, including private equity, private credit, infrastructure, venture, and real estate. We have noted in the past that financial sponsors, in particular, were historically underrepresented in our client base and in our revenue. This transaction changes our mix overnight. We are excited to welcome to our firm a group of talented new colleagues from Devon Park, including a partner and two managing directors.

I have said in the past that we would consider M&A to advance our growth objectives if the transaction is compelling, not only financially but strategically and culturally as well. That is what we have with Devon Park. We expect that the addition of Devon Park will contribute to our financial performance immediately upon closing and, looking ahead, will meaningfully benefit all of our stakeholders—our clients, our teams, and our shareholders. With that, I will now turn the call over to Alex Gottschalk to review our financial results and capital management in more detail.

Alex Gottschalk: Thank you, Andrew. Our second quarter revenues of $155 million included $28 million related to closings that occurred within the first few days of the third quarter and which, in accordance with relevant accounting principles, were recorded in the second quarter. Consistent with our first quarter, our adjusted compensation margin remained at 67% of revenues. We will evaluate our accrual level in the back half of the year as we gain clarity on full-year revenue and the current impact of talent investment. Our adjusted non-compensation expense of $36 million for the quarter was a meaningful drop from the prior year and prior quarter and was largely driven by the expected decline in litigation-related costs.

For the first half of the year, non-compensation expenses totaled $86 million, up 9.5% from the same period last year. Given a lower anticipated run rate, we are now modeling a mid-single-digit increase for the full year, which is lower than previously indicated. Our adjusted tax rate for the first half, excluding the benefit from stock-based compensation vesting at a higher price than the grant date, was 30% and is in line with our expectation for the remainder of the year. Turning to capital management, in the second quarter, we returned an additional $24 million to equity holders through the net settlement of RSUs, open market purchases, and dividends.

In the first half of the year, we repurchased 1.7 million Class A common shares as we continue to look for opportunities to offset dilution from the vesting of stock-based compensation. Since entering the public markets four years ago, we have returned over $675 million to equity holders, including the repurchase of more than 32 million shares and share equivalents. At the end of the second quarter, we had 63 million shares of Class A common stock and 25 million partnership units outstanding. We closed the quarter with $145 million in cash and no debt. This morning, we declared a quarterly dividend of $0.07 per share. With that, operator, please open the line for questions.

Operator: Thank you. Press star 1 on your telephone. You may remove yourself from the queue by pressing star 2. We will go first this morning to Devin Ryan of Citizens.

Devin Ryan: Hey. Good morning, Andrew and Alex. How are you?

Andrew Bednar: We are doing well, Devin. Good morning.

Devin Ryan: Hey. Good morning. So, a question on the comment about the peak level of gross fee backlog, I think is what I heard. Just want to make sure, is that including announced deals or is it off of announced deals? And I hate to overly focus on the backlog, but, you know, the deal logic data that some people look at shows it down, I think, a fair amount from the beginning of the year. So maybe you could talk a little bit more about what you are seeing in the backlog, just describing it, but then also the momentum in engagement that you have seen just kind of evolve here in recent months.

You have given a little bit of detail in the prepared remarks, but just any more color there? And then just how it feels today with some of this complexity relative to maybe even, say, a year ago? Thank you.

Andrew Bednar: Yeah. Good question, Devin. Let me start with some nomenclature, just to make sure we are level set on what we define as pipeline versus backlog. So backlog, we think of as just the announced and pending, and I am not going to comment on the specifics of what deal logic or any other third-party vendor provides. But we think about backlog as just the announced and pending. Our pipeline is all the activity that we have throughout the firm, which involves engagement letters and also situations where we believe we will be mandated. And that, on an un-risk-adjusted basis, is trending at peak levels right now.

As I said in my remarks upfront, we have had some longer duration to convert some of our transactions to announcement. But the flow from clients, the new business reviews that I see on my dashboard are growing, and they are up. Our engagement letter executions are growing, and they are up. And the client activity is, as I do course sampling around the firm and different industries and geographies, everyone is reporting extremely busy conditions on the ground. But just challenges in getting things announced.

I think the tone has changed dramatically from the end of, you know, the middle of the second quarter, as I said, April and May were, you know, pretty tough months overall just to get people focused on getting transactions announced. I think that was an air pocket. And already in July, we have seen a reversion back to a more typical announcement cadence that looks more like the first quarter than the second quarter. So we feel good about looking ahead.

You know, every time we get on these calls, it is always hard to measure our progress by one quarter, whether it is a great quarter or a quarter that may not have hit our expectations, but we are building a business for the long term. It is just very, very challenging to get these closing dates exactly to line up with the end of a quarter. But the leading indicators I look at, Devin, look very, very strong.

Devin Ryan: Yeah. That is great color, Andrew. Thank you. Appreciate the nuance there. But good to hear that. And then follow-up here on the acquisition this morning at Devon Park Advisors, obviously, like the name there. But maybe more importantly, in terms of what it does for your firm. So I am curious, I mean, obviously, it is a small deal, but does it kind of push you into private capital in a more meaningful way? So just talk a little bit about how you are thinking about the private capital opportunity for the firm. Is this the backbone to then build more capabilities off of?

And if that is the case, where do you want to go next, or where are the kind of the most immediate opportunities? And then are there areas within private capital that you guys do not want to go into that maybe some of your peers are big in or maybe those are much further down the line? Thanks.

Andrew Bednar: Yes. Thanks, Devin. So look, Devon Park is a small firm with a big impact. They are a lot like us. They have got, you know, more of a workshop mentality in the factory. We are not in the high-volume business. We are very client-centric and very focused on making sure we get superior outcomes for our clients. And with that added value on large-scale transactions, we tend to earn a, you know, very significant fee. We feel good about the strategic and cultural fit. Financially, it is not material to our balance sheet or income statement, but it is going to have a significant impact on how we think about and pursue opportunities with our alternative asset manager clients.

As I said upfront, it sort of ranges from traditional financial sponsors, but also private credit, infrastructure, venture, and real estate. All of these aspects of alternative asset management have liquidity needs. You have private capital extending duration across the growth curve of many, many companies that in some cases, obviates the need to go public. And in some cases, there is not an opportunity to sell. So these liquidity needs are really driving the growth of this market, which has been quite extraordinary. We watched it for a while and have decided that it is just too important to our clients not to be in the business.

And a lot of our thinking around this transaction really emanated from reverse inquiry coming from our clients asking us if we can help with GP-led secondaries. And so this is a hand-in-glove fit for our strategy in serving the needs of our alternative asset manager clients. We think we have got a great cultural fit, and the team at Devon Park has done a great job in building their business in a way that we have built our business. So we are very excited about the combination.

Devin Ryan: That is great. If I can just sneak in one more on the partner headcount, I am not sure if you gave that, but if you could give it for where it ended June and then I heard the comment about the six partner promotions and then the six external hires. So I am assuming that would be additive to whatever the number is in June. Thanks.

Andrew Bednar: Yeah. We ended June at 64. Today, we are at 70. And we expect at least 76 toward the end of the year, given the new hires that we have made, subject to any types of retirements or movements. But right now, we are expecting 76 at the end of the year.

Devin Ryan: Yes. Okay, that is great. Well, thanks for taking the questions.

Andrew Bednar: Thanks, Devin.

Operator: Thank you. We go next now to Brendan O'Brien of Wolfe Research.

Brendan O'Brien: Good morning, and thanks for taking my questions. I just wanted to touch on the revenue outlook for the remainder of the year. You know, recognize the tough year-on-year comps for revenues, especially as you alluded to, you know, the two sizable transactions that contributed to the results last year. But just given your constructive outlook for the back half, could you speak to your confidence in your ability to meet or exceed that record 2024 revenues? Or, you know, is it just too much uncertain at this juncture to get in the timing of conversion and the like?

Andrew Bednar: Yeah. Thanks for the question. As you know, we do not give revenue guidance, so I will stay away from that. We are very happy with our record year last year. It is always hard to replicate those types of fee events. But we are doing a good job, given that we are only down 2% in the first half versus last year, which included the record second quarter. I am very pleased with the broadening out of the business so that we are less reliant on large fee events. Always like large fee events, but we do not like being reliant on them. So I am very happy that we broadened out the revenue base.

I feel very good about engagement take-up and client receptivity. I am super excited, as you can tell, by the addition of the capabilities with the Devon Park team. Again, a lot of that reflected reverse inquiry from our clients coming in. So we feel like we will have an immediate impact as soon as we get that transaction closed, which we expect in October. Whether transactions announced and closed within a certain accounting period, as I have said, I know ad nauseam here on these calls over time, it is just very hard to predict when transactions will actually close. We are looking forward to more announcements. We have already seen a better trend in July.

And exactly when things close, that is usually in someone else's hands. And so we will do our best to serve our clients and get transactions that they want announced, and then we wait for the closing. So it is very hard in our business line to predict quarter to quarter, so I will stay away from that. But again, the leading indicators are all quite positive.

Brendan O'Brien: That is helpful color. And for my, you know, I have pressed you on recruiting for a few quarters now, so it is really nice to see the pickup in hiring this quarter. Just want to get an update as to what your sales like, what the recruiting pipeline looks like today, and how you are thinking about balancing your hiring ambitions with managing the comp ratio this year?

Andrew Bednar: Yeah. We are very, very pleased with our recruiting to date. It also, as we have gone through this now since being public four plus years, it has a cumulative impact. So as we are hiring more people and the quality of the people we are hiring, it tends to attract more people. So we have got a very, very steady flow and growing flow of candidates who we think could be interesting for us and exciting to add to our platform. We do not rush into those things. We are still very deliberate. We have got a process that we go through.

We also are very sensitive to the integration and to the cultural impact that people will have and too many people might have on the organization. So we are still a steady grower in that sense. As I mentioned last year on the third quarter call, I do think we missed recruiting a bit last year, but we were so busy and ended up producing a record year. So we switched a little bit of our time toward recruiting, and I think we have really good results. And that, as you well know, and you have been a proponent of this, and I know you have questioned us in the past, so thank you for that.

But as you know, this is built-in growth now. So we have an opportunity now with our new teammates joining the firm to add revenue that is inherent now in the base of the business. We are excited about that. On comp margins, it is too early. We usually have a reflection of that in the fourth quarter. Right now, we are accruing where we were in the first quarter, and that is our best estimate for the year, and we are managing through our investments and sort of watching our revenue development, but it is just too early in the year to make a move on that.

Brendan O'Brien: Great. Thank you so much for taking my questions.

Andrew Bednar: You are welcome.

Operator: Thank you. We go next now to Alex Bond of KBW.

Alex Bond: Hey, good morning, everyone. Thank you for taking my questions. Just curious on your view relating to the large cap deal outlook specifically. We have seen a number of large strategic tie-ups here announced in the past couple of weeks, and it seems like momentum there is building. But do you think conversations or activity levels in this part of the market are back to or maybe close to the pre-April levels, or is there still somewhat of a maybe a wait-and-see element of some C-suites wanting to have a bit more macro clarity or maybe see how some of these recently announced deals progress before committing to a deal themselves? Thanks.

Andrew Bednar: Yep. Thanks for the question, Alex. I think for sure, and not just large-scale transactions, but really across the board, the crisis thought on that already. I think there is an outlook and a look forward rather than a look behind. I think people have managed through all the tariff turmoil and believe that we are going to come through that fine. It will not be without impact, but it will be fine. I described the word that most of our executives and clients are using in that regard. And you saw we have seen a very significant increase in large-scale transactions. They were in some industries that were not present.

So, you know, that happens when you are a smaller scale player as we are. We are working on our scaling. As you know, that is a significant part of our strategy to scale up the business. But those transactions are, I think, a green light to other companies considering larger scale transactions. We are in a market where typically transactions beget transactions. So that trending is a very positive thing, not just for large-scale transactions, but for the broader market.

Alex Bond: Got it. That makes sense. And then maybe just for my follow-up, specifically on the restructuring outlook through year-end. Just given the, you know, the obviously, the changing backdrop that we have seen since April. You had mentioned on the previous call that you know, you are seeing heightened activity levels there, kind of during that tariff uncertainty. But, you know, obviously, the backdrop has changed since then. So wondering if you could run through how you have seen activity levels, or how you have seen activity levels evolve in that space in the months since.

Andrew Bednar: The restructuring business is part of our broader financing and capital solutions business. And when I think about that business combined, it is trending toward a record year. So they are doing extremely well, very busy. That was one business that was uninterrupted during April and May. That trending has continued. I think generally, you go through some periods of what I would just describe as ingestion and digestion. So you have moments where you are incredibly busy on executing and then moments where you have to get back out and market. And so we go through those periods of time. But generally, the trends in that business still look very strong.

And we have not seen the historic cyclicality hit yet. I am not sure we will. I think the base of that business is generally just a higher base with less volatility, and the amplitude, I think, has been reduced over time where that business just creates a pretty steady ballast for the rest of our activity around M&A and now in funds advisory.

Alex Bond: Great. That is helpful color. Thank you.

Andrew Bednar: Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. We go next now to James Yaro with Goldman Sachs.

James Yaro: Thanks for taking the question. So you obviously, this substantially increased hiring this year both organically and through the acquisition announced this morning. What is the scale you believe you could achieve from a senior banker base over the next few years? And any way for us to sensitize that growth or think about how much growth you could achieve? And then longer term, is there a ramification you would expect to the comp ratio from that growth?

Andrew Bednar: Yes. Thanks, James. Good morning. You know, right now, we have no limitation on hiring more partners and managing directors. It is really for us a question of whether they are the right fit, whether they have the caliber of expertise and client coverage that makes sense for us strategically and financially. So we will continue to apply the same criteria to enter new people onto our platform. We are, again, excited about that pipeline. And so that looks very, very promising.

We are also just cautious culturally and adding too many people and wanting to make sure that we are not just simply adding to headcount, but we are adding the right people and that they are going to help create value for our firm and for all of our stakeholders. So, you know, I think what we said at the IPO time back in 2021 is, you know, somewhere around five to seven hires, and then you would probably have some retirements. So we were looking at four to five net. We will be way above trend this year, which makes up a bit for last year. So, feels good. But, generally, we are still in that same zone.

That might trend upward a little bit as we grow. But also we are working very hard to make sure that we have a fair number of internal promotes. And this year, we have got a terrific class of internal partner promotes with the six individuals that we have previously announced. And so, there is a mix of growing the partner base through internal hires as well as external hires. So we will continue to have that mix. But as we head into the year-end, you know, it is going to be back to about a third of our partnership will have been here less than three years.

So that is exciting embedded growth for us that we are going to hopefully get returns on as we head into '26 and beyond.

James Yaro: That is great. Thanks. Any update that you could provide around capital return aspirations going forward given the scale of the organic investment and obviously that consumes some of that capital that could otherwise be returned to investors?

Andrew Bednar: Yes. We are always thinking about our share count. We are laser-focused on making sure we are growing EPS through taking down the share count. We obviously have stock-based compensation every year that naturally increases that share count. So we look to mitigate that and still will look to mitigate that. We also have natural opportunities to buy in share equivalents through net settlement as well as through our partnership exchanges, which happen every quarter. So we have got opportunities to buy in those equity positions. More recently, we have invested in the business. I think on balance, we can invest more in the business and generate revenue return, that is a very prudent use of our capital.

But we will not do that to exclude the opportunity to return capital to our shareholders. But right now, it is a more attractive use of our capital to build the business with the opportunities that we have seen now in the last quarter or two with new hires, but also with the Devon Park transaction. So there will be moments where we are a little heavier on investment and a little lighter on return. That is probably the zone we are in now. We are still always mindful. As you know, we are large owners of our shares, and we do look to mitigate the impact of our stock-based comp issuance.

And dividend, as you heard today, we have it maintained at $0.07. That is very clear. Thank you so much.

James Yaro: Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. And it appears we have no further questions this morning. Mr. Bednar, I would like to turn things back to you, sir, for any closing comments.

Andrew Bednar: Okay. Thank you very much. As you can sense from our comments, we are very excited about our future prospects. We welcome the Devon Park team to our Perella Weinberg Partners team. Appreciate everyone joining the call today, and we will catch up again in a few months. Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. Again, ladies and gentlemen, that will conclude today's Perella Weinberg Partners Second Quarter 2025 Earnings Call and Webcast. You may disconnect your line at this time and have a wonderful day. Goodbye.