Perella Weinberg (PWP) Q4 2025 Earnings Transcript

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DATE

Friday, Feb. 6, 2026 at 9 a.m. ET

CALL PARTICIPANTS

• Chief Executive Officer — Andrew Bednar
• Chief Financial Officer — Alexandra Gottschalk

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TAKEAWAYS

• Total Revenues -- $751 million for the full year, the third-highest in company history despite a 14% decrease from the prior year’s record.
• Fourth-Quarter Revenue -- $219 million, including $18.5 million from closings recognized under accounting rules from early January 2026.
• Record Revenue in Europe -- Achieved the highest-ever annual revenues in the region, described as “record revenues” with strengthened positioning in key continental markets.
• Restructuring Practice -- Reached record revenues and expanded share, attributed to increased debtor-side mandates and an active liability management environment.
• Adjusted compensation margin -- 68% for the full year, up from 67% a year prior, reflecting increased investment in senior talent and additions from acquisitions.
• Senior Banker Hires -- 23 new senior bankers joined in 2025, with 14 new to the platform; two additional partners were added at the start of 2026.
• Adjusted Non-Compensation Expense -- $159 million for the year, down 2% year over year and below the company’s initial growth projection, with a further single-digit percent decrease expected in 2026.
• Capital Return to Shareholders -- Over $163 million returned through dividends, RSU settlements, share repurchases, and unit exchanges; 6.5 million shares retired in 2025.
• Shares and Partnership Units Outstanding -- 67 million shares of Class A common stock and 22 million partnership units at year-end.
• Ending Cash Position & Debt -- $256 million in cash and no debt reported at year-end.
• Quarterly Dividend Declaration -- $0.07 per share declared for the current quarter.
• Gross Pipeline -- “record highs,” achieved with a strong and growing backlog of announced and pending deals, according to management.
• Compensation Accrual Approach -- Management stated the Q1 2026 accrual will begin at 67%, matching last year’s starting point.

SUMMARY

Perella Weinberg Partners (NASDAQ:PWP) delivered its third-highest revenue year despite a notable decrease, supported by record performances in Europe and restructuring. Management highlighted strengthened recruiting momentum, citing 23 senior hires in 2025 and early progress in building out Healthcare Services and U.S. Software coverage in 2026. The company ended the year with a strong cash position, no debt, lower-than-expected non-compensation expenses, and ongoing commitments to shareholder returns.

• Management said the Devon Park acquisition has already led to “jointly won new mandates,” suggesting early integration success with private capital clients.
• Andrew Bednar characterized the current restructuring environment as “very strong” and anticipates sustained activity in liability management engagements.
• In response to questions on hiring trend normalization, Bednar stated 2026 recruiting activity “will be likely a more normal year,” indicating a moderation from the record pace in 2025.
• Management confirmed “any departure from our priority stack” regarding capital deployment, reaffirming investment in the business and share count management as foremost priorities.
• Responses to questions on geopolitical and U.S. policy uncertainty indicated no current impact on client dialogue or deal activity, with Bednar stating, “we're not seeing anything yet, it's a little too early.”

INDUSTRY GLOSSARY

• Debtor-Side Mandates: Advisory engagements where the firm represents financially distressed companies (debtors) in restructuring or liability management transactions.
• Compensation Margin: The ratio of total compensation and benefits expense to total revenue, reflecting the portion of revenues paid out to team members.
• Liability Management Engagements: Advisory assignments focused on helping clients proactively manage debt obligations, covenants, and balance sheet risks in anticipation of market or credit events.
• RSU Settlements: Payments for vested Restricted Stock Units, often leading to share retirements or repurchase activity to cover tax obligations.

Full Conference Call Transcript

Andrew Bednar, Chief Executive Officer, and Alexandra Gottschalk, Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin, I'd like to note that this call may contain forward-looking statements, including Perella Weinberg Partners' expectations of future financial and business performance, conditions, and industry outlook. Forward-looking statements are inherently subject to risks, uncertainties, and assumptions that could cause actual results to differ materially from those discussed in the forward-looking statements and are not guarantees of future events or performance. Please refer to Perella Weinberg Partners' most recent SEC filings for a discussion of certain of these risks and uncertainties. The forward-looking statements are based on our current beliefs and expectations, and the firm undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements.

During the call, there will also be a discussion of some metrics which are non-GAAP financial measures, which management believes are relevant in assessing the financial performance of the business. Perella Weinberg Partners has reconciled these items to the most comparable GAAP measures in the press release filed with today's Form 8-K, which can be found on the company's website. I will now turn the call over to Andrew Bednar to discuss our results.

Andrew Bednar: Thank you, Taylor, and good morning. Today, we reported full-year 2025 revenues of $751 million and fourth-quarter revenues of $219 million. While 2025 revenues were down 14% from 2024's record results, 2025 was the third-highest revenue year in our firm's twenty-year history. A testament to the strength and resilience of our business and the result of our deliberate investment in building a focused and differentiated platform that can perform across M&A. It was a productive year for expanding and deepening our coverage and expertise. Though we fell short of our revenue ambitions as several large transactions we advised on did not complete as we had hoped.

That said, we are pleased with our progress and have confidence that our investments and laser focus on clients will deliver in 2026 and beyond. In Europe, we delivered record revenues, further cementing our position as a leading advisor in the most active regions on the continent. Our restructuring practice also hit record revenues, gaining market share in a market that continues to grow. Consistently delivering superior results for our clients is attracting more high-profile and high-value assignments, especially in debtor-side mandates. This positions us extremely well going forward across our financing and capital solutions business. On talent, 2025 was a record year for both recruiting and promoting senior bankers, and new hire momentum continues. We see a flywheel effect.

Top talent is attracting more top talent, and our pipeline of future 23 new senior bankers to our platform. And already in 2026, we added two more partners, one reflecting our continued build-out of our Healthcare Services business and the other strengthening our U.S. Software coverage, following a recent partner addition in Europe. Looking ahead, the opportunity to grow our business is exceptional. Our gross pipeline stands at record highs, and our announced and pending backlog is strong and building. Sentiment is positive across our client base from corporates to sponsors. And we see momentum building. As we enter our twentieth year as a firm, we feel great about our position.

We're incredibly proud of the firm we've built over two decades, and we're excited to write the next chapter. One that builds on our strengths to deliver both superior outcomes for our clients and attractive returns for our shareholders. In a sense, we're really just getting started. With that, I'll now turn the call over to Alexandra Gottschalk to review our financial results and capital management in more detail.

Alexandra Gottschalk: Thank you, Andrew. Our fourth-quarter revenues of $219 million included $18.5 million related to closings that occurred within the first few days of 2026, which in accordance with relevant accounting principles were recorded in the fourth quarter. Our adjusted compensation margin was 68% for the full year 2025 compared to 67% in 2024. We maintained strong discipline in managing our compensation ratio despite, as Andrew mentioned, a year of record talent investment, including the Devon Park acquisition. We remain highly aligned with our shareholders, with partners in our broader team owning over 30% of the firm, and we are committed to thoughtfully managing our compensation ratio as we drive profitability while strategically investing in top talent.

Adjusted non-compensation expense was $159 million for the full year 2025, down 2% from a year ago and well below the single-digit growth range we originally projected earlier in the year. Looking ahead to 2026, with certain nonrecurring items now behind us, we expect a further single-digit percent decrease. Turning to capital management, we returned over $163 million to equity in 2025 through dividends, RSU settlements, share repurchases, and unit exchanges. As a part of these efforts, we retired 6.5 million shares during the year, reflecting our continued focus on managing our share count. At year-end, we had 67 million shares of Class A common stock and 22 million partnership units outstanding.

Finally, we closed the year with $256 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. Our first question will come from Devin Ryan with Citizens Bank. Your line is open.

Devin Ryan: Great. Good morning, Andrew and Alexandra. How are you?

Andrew Bednar: Yes. Hi, Devin. How are you?

Devin Ryan: Doing great. Question just first on kind of the advisory environment and kind of the outlook. Obviously, don't want to dwell too much on what happened in 2025, but you did mention there were some kind of large deals that didn't come together. Any sense of like order of magnitude how much that impacted results on the year? And then as we think about 2026 and assuming your kind of batting average is more normal versus maybe it's a little below normal on those large deals, how much of an impact does that have as you look at your kind of record backlog as you noted?

And how much is kind of large deals versus kind of a broadening out in the M&A market?

Andrew Bednar: Yes. Thanks, Devin. Look, we live for large-scale M&A transactions, but we don't die when they don't play out. I mean last year, there were 70 transactions over $10 billion. The year before that, there were 35. And in the year, where we had record results, there were four transactions over $10 billion last year. We were not in any. This year, out of the gate, we're in one already. So I think generally, the trending is better. Because of our scale, we're just going to have a lower incident rate than really all segments in the market, but in particular, we all feel it a little bit more when we're not in the larger scale, larger fee transactions.

There are several where the ball just didn't bounce our way for us and for our client. That's unfortunate. So that usually leads to some other type of strategic activities. So that doesn't usually lead to just a dead environment for deal flow generally once you have that client you're thinking about the next thing. So that's encouraging. And generally, a few of them, the bulge didn't bounce our way. We're more optimistic heading into '26 again given the starting point that we have here in January. Where we announced a $15 billion transaction a couple of weeks ago.

Devin Ryan: Okay. That's great. Thanks, Andrew. And follow-up here on the private capital, the Devon Park kind of addition. Now that's been part of the business, obviously not too long, but any anecdotes on how that's going, how it's making you more relevant in client conversations? And just how we can think about maybe the order of magnitude of what that business could mean for Perella Weinberg Partners over the intermediate term, just like how is it going and the anecdotes you're seeing there? Thanks.

Andrew Bednar: Yes, thanks. So far, feel great about the combination. As you know, we look for situations where they're culturally and financially and strategically highly attractive to us and to our new partners. I think the Devon Park transaction has gone very well in all those regards. The take-up rate and the conversations with our private equity clients and our credit clients and real estate clients have gone very well. And we have already jointly won new mandates. So we're very encouraged by that. And the pipeline looks very good. We're only month four, obviously, so it's early days, but we couldn't be happier with the early days.

Devin Ryan: Okay, great. I'm going to try to squeeze one more in here, if I can, just on compensation. Obviously, in the year where revenues go down, not surprising to see the comp ratio tick up a little bit. Indirectly because that made sense. As we look ahead and the environment is improving, hopefully, a better hit rate 2026 on some of these larger deals. How do we think about the algorithm from this jumping-off point to get back into that mid-60s or below on the comp ratio? And not twenties.

Andrew Bednar: Yes. Thanks for that. Look, didn't hit our revenue targets for '25 and combined with our heavy investment. I always look at the balance of trade between our productive partners and our shareholders, and I've always committed to finding the right balance point between having partners invest in future growth and having shareholders invest in future growth. I think we've historically struck the right balance. We're all large shareholders, as you know, so we care about the equity of this company, but we're looking at ways to drive this forward. We do have comp leverage. We have flexed that in the past. As you know, we flexed in '21.

We flexed it in '24 where we took it down 300 basis points from 2023. We need more scale, so we need the revenue progression to continue and get back on what we think we can earn here. I think last year, we under-earned based on our capabilities and our capacity. So we're more optimistic going into 2026. But I don't have a specific algorithm because it really depends on a multivariable equation where we have to look at only the revenue outcome, but also what our investing is like. And you know, Devin, I have a different view than the accountants, but the accountants control the outcome on how it's reported. But some of our comp margin is CapEx.

And I think that when we're wisely investing, we're going to see the results of that in the go-forward periods. There's a bit of a mismatch where we have to invest before we get the revenue. But we feel really good about the 23 senior hires we had, the 23 senior additions we had in 2025, 14 of whom are new to the platform, which is great. We see the pipeline looking pretty good for 2026 as well. But that's a constant balancing that we have to do to make sure that we're sharing appropriately how we think about CapEx here and this impact on comp margin.

But as you get scale, we have that comp leverage flex and we've done that in the past. We just weren't able to do it in 2025, and I think a one-point increase from where we were accruing reflects the level of investments that we're doing.

Devin Ryan: Yes. Very helpful. Thank you very much. I'll hop back in the queue.

Andrew Bednar: Thanks, Devin.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question will come from Alexander Bond with KBW. Your line is open.

Alexander Bond: Good morning, everyone. Just a question on restructuring outlook. This has obviously been an increasingly important part of your business recently. But wondering if you can just speak to your outlook for 2026 here, maybe relative to 2025. Are you expecting revenues to be up here maybe year over year or maybe closer to flat or even down slightly? And then any color you could add just on the broader backdrop for restructuring from here would be helpful as well. Thank you.

Andrew Bednar: Yes. Thanks, Alex. We feel very, very good about the environment for our restructuring business and we feel very good about across sectors in that market as well. We saw a record year for our business last year. We're not seeing any slowdown, particularly in liability management engagement. So not necessarily nine eleven going bankrupt tomorrow, but just generally really prudent and very proactive finance managers with our clients that are looking ahead at maturities, they're looking ahead at covenants, they're looking ahead at ways to enhance their balance sheet and we guide them through that and receive a fee in those circumstances. So, I think the environment is very strong.

I think with some of the disruption we've seen in software in recent sessions has created some level of concern with the credits in those particular sectors that I think will again lead to some more activity for us. So that business is quite strong and we're feeling very good about heading into the rest of 2026.

Alexander Bond: Got it. That's helpful. And then maybe just another one on recruiting backdrop. I think you've noted previously that this past year was an above-average year for you all in terms of hiring. But maybe if you could just help us think about how you're thinking about the recruiting backdrop for the coming year, maybe what we should expect to see in terms of maybe not necessarily a number, but just in terms of your activity there on the hiring side and also just, any high-level thoughts around, recruiting backdrop as a whole be helpful as well. Thank you.

Andrew Bednar: Sure. That's a continuous exercise for us. It's a core part of our strategy to add talent. We have a lot of open space in our platform still with only now 77 partners, and we have you know, covering about 1,500 to 2,000 clients. So we have a lot of open space for high-quality bankers to join our platform. And pipeline looks very good. We have always every year more candidates that are interested in joining us than we will accept. And just reality of how we think about additions to our platform. I think it will be likely a more normal year. It'll go back to trend in the coming twelve months.

I think, again, the pipeline looks good, but I don't see it as active as we were last year. In terms of the sort of brick by brick strategy that we've been on. But we can get some surprises and that'll be great if we can add some more talent. But I think we're back on trend and the pipeline looks very good, so I'm happy about it.

Alexander Bond: Okay, great. That all makes sense. Thank you, Andrew.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question will come from Brendan O'Brien with Wolfe Research. Your line is open.

Brendan O'Brien: Good morning and thank you for taking my questions. To start, I was just a bit surprised that you guys had the record year in Europe given from what we can see in the geologic data trends have continued to lag those in the U.S. I was just hoping you could unpack some of the drivers, what seems like pretty meaningful share gains in the region and just what the tenor discussions are like in Europe today and how you feel that people will track relative to the U.S. over the near to intermediate term?

Andrew Bednar: Yes. I think for the better part of the decade, European volumes have been trending below normal. And certainly trending disproportionate to the growth in the U.S. So I think it's a matter of just a matter of time before those activity levels get back to where they should be.

Again, I think we're seeing the benefits of some of our investments and not only in new talent, but also our investments in clients that you have to make that are going to take time to actually convert to revenue and we were fortunate to have some large-scale transactions not only announced in the period, but also get done in the period because we're in a business where typically large-scale transactions don't announce and close in the same quarter. Or sometimes even in the same year. So I think we had some very good dynamics in our European business. We've got a terrific team there.

We've got leading share in markets like in Germany and in France, and those were very active markets as we look back at 2025's results. I think Europe is very, very focused on what their future is looking like. There's active investments around industries, defense and energy things around infrastructure. So the dialogue has picked up quite dramatically in the wake of all the geopolitical changes that we're all witnessing every day.

We wake up and read the news, and I think that's leading to more and more discussions on the continent about what the industries will look like in a go-forward Europe, which is good for our business when people have complex situations, they tend to have experts around them and so we're fortunate to get those calls and be around the table with industry leaders as they think about and contemplate the future of what Europe is going to look like. But we're right in the middle of those dialogues and feel good about our team and very happy with results coming out in 2025.

Brendan O'Brien: That's helpful color. And I guess building on your comments on the geopolitical tensions ramping, that's obviously seen a pretty notable uptick as and then you've also seen an increase in policy uncertainty in the U.S. which is only likely to intensify into the midterm elections. Just wanted to get a sense as to whether you've seen any impact on dialogues at this point with your U.S.-focused clients? And do you anticipate the midterms to have any negative impact?

Andrew Bednar: On the last point on midterms, we're not seeing anything yet, it's a little too early. For that to start. Bleeding into some of the decisions our clients have to make. So I think it's a little early on Geopolitical generally, as I mentioned a few seconds ago, it's just part of our environment now, much part of the every day we wake up and assess what's going on in the world. I think it creates a level of anxiety, but not panic.

And I think once we and our clients get through some of the fog, most of our clients, I would say the overwhelming majority of clients see opportunities more than they see obstacles coming out of the geopolitical landscape. And that's true for the energy complex, for global manufacturing and even for services companies that operate globally. So I think once you get through the initial shock of some of the headlines and news flow, I think the cooler heads prevailed, long-term thinking sets in and people are seeing more opportunities than they are seeing problems.

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

Andrew Bednar: Thanks.

Operator: Our next question will come from James Yaro with Goldman. Your line is open.

James Yaro: Good morning. Would you be able to help us think through a high level the mix of your advisory revenue across M&A versus the non-M&A businesses, perhaps 2025 in aggregate or however you'd be willing to break this down?

Andrew Bednar: Yes. Good morning, James. As you know, said on prior calls and at various conferences that we don't segment our business that way because we don't operate our business based on our products. We don't sell products. We solve problems for clients. We are organized by sector and therefore organized by the coverage we have of our clients, not the products that we're trying to sell. So I know I get this question often. Respectfully declining to give that detail because it isn't how we operate the business.

I do want to give some color on the different markets we operate in, which hopefully I've given in terms of M&A context as well as our financing and capital solutions business, which I mentioned was at a record. And we feel very good about particular our liability management engagements going forward and the activity we see there.

James Yaro: Understood. Could you just perhaps update us a little bit on your capital return priorities beyond the organic investment, which is clearly top of the list of priorities and that makes sense. But just beyond that, anything that we should be thinking about for capital deployment?

Andrew Bednar: Our priority stack remains exactly the same. As we can invest our capital in future revenue and future clients and building out businesses, that by far the best use of our capital. We saw really good uses in '25, so we were weighted a bit more to that deployment in the prior period. '26, we don't it's early days, so we don't know. We may have some good investment opportunities, and we'll take advantage of those they present themselves. But we're still laser-focused on our share count. We have our dividend, which we announced this morning.

And we will take advantage of buyback opportunities either through exchanges and our typical RSU vesting, where we buy in the shares to pay taxes and from time to time, we're in the open market. But I don't see any departure from our priority stack there. And from time to time, may emphasize one over the other, but priorities remain in place, James. So no change there.

James Yaro: Thank you. And maybe if I may, just one more. What is the right starting point for the comp ratio as we head into 2026? I'm just trying to make sure that we understand I think, firms do it differently. Should we be looking at full-year '25 ratios, the jumping-off point, the 4Q number? And then does the mid-sixties comp ratio target still hold?

Andrew Bednar: Yeah. The Q4 number to me at least, is irrelevant. That's just what the math shows to get to our annual comp ratio, is 68%, which is I explained I thought was 100 basis points above where we were accruing in the first March, which a fair balance of trade for who will pay for future growth. And I think we're going to get that, and it's a good investment. Our jumping-off point, we're going to have the same as last year. So start at 67% for Q1.

And I've just always asked all of our stakeholders, people on this phone and my partners, employees that own shares that we just need some flexibility in Q4 to assess what the final manage our business and reflect our investments. So that's our typical cadence stick with that, but the jumping-off point, as you call it. For Q1 will be at 67% accrual.

James Yaro: That's very clear. Thanks a lot.

Andrew Bednar: Thank you.

Operator: This concludes the Q&A portion of today's call. I would now like to turn the call back over to Andrew Bednar for any additional or closing remarks.

Andrew Bednar: Okay. Thank you, Katie, and thank you, everyone, for joining us today. As we mark our 20th anniversary as a firm, I want to express our gratitude to first all of our clients who have trusted us with their most consequential transactions over the last two decades. Relationships are the foundation of everything we do. And we thank you for placing your trust and confidence in us over the years. To our investors, many of you have been with us since we went public five years ago. And others have joined along the way or more recently. Thank you for your confidence and for all your support.

We're committed to delivering for you, as you know, as I've mentioned many times, we're also large shareholders. And finally, to my teammates around the world, you make this firm what it is. Your exceptional talent and tireless dedication to our clients drives their success every day and in turn our success. Thank you. We look forward to updating all of you on our next quarter. And thanks again for joining us today.

Operator: This concludes the Perella Weinberg Partners full year and fourth quarter 2025 earnings call and webcast. You may disconnect your lines at this time and have a wonderful day.

Goodbye.

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