Company: LAZ
Filing Date: 2025-02-24
Form Type: 10-K
Source: 0001628280-25-007441
Chunk: 121

Company: Lazard, Inc.
Filing Date: 2025-02-24
Form: 10-K
Item: Item 1A
Chunk 121
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 levels. Similarly, we may incur losses and be subject to reputational harm to the extent that, for any reason, we are unable to assist a client in raising capital at anticipated price levels when we act as financial advisor. In addition, if we act as an 

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underwriter, deal manager or financial advisor, we may also be subject to liability for material misstatements or omissions in prospectuses and other offering documents relating to the applicable transactions. In such cases, any indemnification provisions in the applicable underwriting, deal manager or financial advisory agreement may not be available to us or may not be sufficient to protect us against losses arising from such liability. Operational risk in connection with any offering or capital raise we participate in could arise in the form of errors, deficiencies or noncompliance and also could expose us to risk. We seek to manage the risks associated with underwriting, deal manager and financial advisory activities through screening, internal review and diligence, but such efforts may not be effective in all cases.

Our investment style in our Asset Management business, including the mix of asset classes and investment strategies comprising our AUM, may underperform or generate less demand than other investment approaches, which may result in significant client or asset departures or a reduction in AUM.

Even when securities prices are rising generally, performance can be affected by investment style and mix of asset classes. For example, many of the equity investment strategies in our Asset Management business share a common investment orientation towards relative value investing. We believe this style tends to outperform the market in some market environments and underperform it in others. In particular, a prolonged growth environment, as we have seen over the last several years, may cause some of our investment strategies to go out of favor with some clients, advisors, consultants or third-party intermediaries. In addition, all of our investment strategies are actively managed strategies which seek to outperform relative to a benchmark or generate an absolute return. Management fees for actively managed strategies tend to be higher than those charged for passively managed strategies. The perception that actively managed strategies have, on average, underperformed relative to passively managed strategies over time, combined with greater pressure on clients to acquire asset management services at lower costs, has contributed to increased trends toward passively managed investment strategies. This, in turn, may adversely affect demand for our strategies or result in fee pressure on our business overall. In combination with poor performance relative to peers, changes in personnel, challenging market environments or other difficulties, the underperformance of our investment style may result in