Company: LAZ
Filing Date: 2025-02-24
Form Type: 10-K
Source: 0001628280-25-007441
Chunk: 95

Company: Lazard, Inc.
Filing Date: 2025-02-24
Form: 10-K
Item: Item 1
Chunk 95
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 project financing and debtor-in-possession financings;

•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 our Financial Advisory business and transactions involving the exchange or issuance of securities; and

•geopolitical advisory.

We endeavor to coordinate the activities of the professionals in these areas with our M&A industry specialists in order to offer clients customized teams of cross-functional expertise spanning both industry and practice area expertise.

3

Strategy

Our focus in our Financial Advisory business is on:

•investing in our intellectual capital through hiring and development of senior professionals who we believe have strong client relationships and industry expertise;

•increasing our client engagement activities to further enhance our long-term relationships, and increasing our marketing efforts to develop new client relationships;

•increasing our connectivity to private capital;

•expanding the breadth and depth of our industry expertise and selectively adding or reinforcing practice areas, such as our Capital Markets Advisory, Shareholder Advisory, Sovereign Advisory and Geopolitical Advisory groups;

•coordinating our industry specialty activities on a global basis and increasing the integration of our industry experts in M&A with our other professionals;

•selectively bolstering our existing presence in certain local markets;

•broadening our geographic presence by adding new offices where opportunities arise; 

•investing in our technology infrastructure, AI and data science capabilities to enhance our business; and 

•deploying our intellectual capital, strong client relationships and other assets to generate new revenue streams.

In addition to the investments made as part of this strategy, we believe that our Financial Advisory business may benefit from current external market factors, including:

•the demand for independent, sophisticated, customized financial advice;

•the large amount of  undeployed committed capital in the global financial system, particularly with financial sponsors;

•financial sponsors’ drive to monetize aging portfolio assets and raise new funds;

•a more favorable regulatory environment, especially in the U.S.;

•improved macroeconomic conditions and stable economic outlook; 

•increased CEO confidence ascertained through global client interactions, along with positive market sentiment; and

•strategic market and industry catalysts; including technology and generative AI, the biotech revolution, ongoing expansion in energy demand and efforts to derisk supply chains. 

Going forward our strategic emphasis in our Financial Advisory business is to focus on investing in high caliber senior hires, alongside the continued development and retention of our talent to