Company: LAZ
Filing Date: 2025-02-24
Form Type: 10-K
Source: 0001628280-25-007441
Chunk: 284

Company: Lazard, Inc.
Filing Date: 2025-02-24
Form: 10-K
Item: Item 7
Chunk 284
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 completion of client transactions, the occurrence and timing of which is irregular and not subject to Lazard’s control.

In the third quarter of 2024, the Company completed the sale of an owned office building for gross proceeds of approximately $194 million, subject to payment of taxes and other expenses.  The resulting net proceeds will be used for general corporate purposes.

Liquidity is significantly impacted by cash payments for incentive compensation, a significant portion of which are made during the first three months of the year. As a consequence, cash on hand generally declines in the beginning of the year and gradually builds over the remainder of the year. We also make payments during the year on behalf of certain managing directors for their estimated taxes, which serve to reduce their respective incentive compensation payments. Additionally, we made payments through 2024 relating to severance and other employee termination costs associated with the cost-saving initiatives. (See Note 18 of Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements). Also see “Senior Debt” below for senior debt refinancing in the first quarter of 2024.

Liquidity is also affected by the level of LFB customer-related demand deposits, primarily from clients and funds managed by LFG. To the extent that such deposits rise or fall, and assuming unchanged asset allocation, this has a 

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corresponding impact on liquidity held at LFB, with the majority of such amounts generally being recorded in “deposits with banks and short-term investments”. LFB is subject to, and in compliance with, regulatory liquidity coverage ratios and liquidity levels are monitored on a daily basis.

We regularly monitor our liquidity position, including cash levels, lease obligations, investments, credit lines, principal investment commitments, interest and principal payments on debt, capital expenditures, dividend payments, purchases of shares of common stock, compensation and matters relating to liquidity and to compliance with regulatory net capital requirements. At December 31, 2024, Lazard had approximately $1,308 million of cash and cash equivalents, including approximately $671 million held at Lazard’s operations outside the U.S. Lazard provides for income taxes on substantially all of its foreign earnings and we expect that no material amount of additional taxes would be recognized upon receipt of dividends or distributions of such earnings from our foreign operations. In the first half of 2025, we plan to make additional investments to seed our Asset Management strategies including in connection with the upcoming launch of actively managed ETFs.

As of December 31, 2024, the Company’s remaining lease obligations were $77 million for