PJT Partners Inc. (PJT) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, and welcome to PJT Partners Inc. Annual Meeting of Shareholders. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Paul Taubman, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of PJT Partners. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you. Good morning, shareholders. The PJT Partners 2022 Annual Meeting of Shareholders is now called to order. I am Paul Taubman, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of PJT Partners. On behalf of our company, I would like to welcome you and thank you for attending today's meeting. Joining us today are members of our Board of Directors. James Costos, Emily Rafferty, Tom Ryan, Grace Skaugen and Ken Whitney; Ji-Yeun Lee, our Managing Partner; Helen Meates, our Chief Financial Officer; Steven Murray, our Global Head of Human Resources; Sharon Pearson, Head of Investor Relations; David Travin, our General Counsel; and Sal Rappa, our Corporate Secretary, who will act as Secretary for this meeting. [ Jed Lavitt ], a representative from Broadridge will act as Inspector of Election for this meeting. Beth Goldstein, a representative from Deloitte & Touche, our audit firm is also present at this meeting. I would now like to ask our Corporate Secretary to conduct the formal part of this meeting.

Thank you, Paul, and thank you to our shareholders for joining us today. We will conduct the business portion of the meeting first and answer questions at the end of the meeting. Note that shareholders will need the 16-digit code that was required to attend the meeting to ask questions in the designated field on the web portal. We will now turn to the business of the meeting. Notice of this meeting was mailed commencing on March 17, 2022, to all shareholders of the company as of March 1, 2022, the record date for the voting of shares at this meeting. An affidavit of mailing from Broadridge confirms such mailing. The Notice of Meeting and the affidavit of mailing are available for inspection by the company's shareholders. A certified list of the shareholders of record of the company as of the record date is also available for inspection by the shareholders. The inspector of election has informed you that a majority in voting power of the Class A and Class B common shareholders is present at this meeting, either in person or by proxy, and we will recognize a quorum for the transaction of business. Turning now to the items of the business for this meeting. We are here to consider 3 proposals: the reelection of 2 Class I directors to the company's Board of Directors, the approval on an advisory basis of the compensation of our named executive officers, and the ratification of the appointment of Deloitte & Touche as the company's independent registered public accounting firm for the fiscal year ending December 31, 2022. The reelection of the 2 members to the company's Board of Directors requires a plurality of the votes cast at this meeting. The remaining proposals require the affirmative vote of a majority of the votes cast at this meeting. The polls are now open. Any shareholder who hasn't yet voted or wishes to change their vote may do so by clicking on the voting button on the web portal and asking the following -- and following the instructions there. Shareholders who have sent in proxies or voted via telephone or Internet and do not want to change their vote, do not need to take any further action. I will now pause us for a moment for those who wish to vote at this meeting. [Voting]

Okay. It does not look like anyone has voted. So as everyone present who desires to vote has done so, we hereby declare the polls closed. The inspector of election has given me the preliminary results of the voting. For approximately 79% to 86% of the votes cast at this meeting were cast for the reelection of the 2 Class I nominees. Approximately 93% of the votes cast at this meeting were cast for the approval on an advisory basis of the compensation of our named executive officers and approximately 97% of the votes cast at this meeting were cast for the ratification of Deloitte & Touche to serve as the company's independent registered public accounting firm for the fiscal year ending December 31, 2022. Based on the results of the vote, the 2 Class I director nominees have been reelected to the Board of Directors of the company. The compensation paid to our named executive officers has been approved on an advisory basis by the company's shareholders and the appointment of Deloitte & Touche to serve as the company's independent registered public accounting firm for the fiscal year ending December 31, 2022, has been ratified by the company's shareholders. That concludes the formal business of the meeting. I will now ask the Chairman to adjourn the meeting.

As there is no further business, the meeting is adjourned.

So now we will now have a presentation followed by a question-and-answer period. However, please remember, we will not answer any questions related to pending or possible litigation matters unrelated to the business of the company or items outside the scope of today's meeting agenda. If you wish to receive information regarding those matters, you may make a request to our Investor Relations group at (212) 364-7810 or Investor Relations at pjtpartners.com. With that, I will turn it back over to our Chairman.

Thank you, Sal. And in continuing the tradition of making a brief presentation to our share owners at each annual meeting to look back on what we've accomplished and to make sure that everyone can best as possible understand where we're headed. We're going to continue in that tradition. And as we look at our highlights in 2021, we are proud of the fact that our strategic advisory practice delivered record results. Our PJT Park Hill business delivered record results. Our PJT CamberView business delivered record results as we continue to march forward to create a truly differentiated best-in-class investment banking term. At the same time, we note that given the extraordinary stimulus that was applied both fiscally and monetarily in the marketplace. That restructuring activity was dramatically reduced, given the risk on environment. But we continue to be extraordinarily proud of our best-in-class restructuring capabilities. For the second year in a row, our restructuring team was named the Restructuring Bank of the Year by IFR and as the market becomes inevitably more challenging and as restructuring activity inevitably begins to increase. We are extraordinarily well positioned. We spent 2021 continuing to expand our capabilities. We understand that as much success as we have had, we are only at the very early days in building out a best-in-class firm. And every day that we all come to work, we're focused on attracting more talent, continuing to create a truly best-in-class culture to ensure that we have capabilities, competencies, presence that are unrivaled. So we're not by any means satisfied with where we are. We're proud of what we've accomplished, but there is a lot more to do. And if we just look at a couple of statistics, we continue to attract best-in-class talent, notwithstanding the challenges of recruiting in a principally remote work-from-home environment at the depths of the COVID pandemic, we were able to attract supremely talented individuals at all levels from most senior to most junior and to grow our head count at a double-digit rate. We continue to be the destination for talent on campus and oftentimes, we cannot believe that the volume of advocates that we received. But last year, we received more than 8,500 applications to work as summer interns or in summer positions or entry positions at our firm. And we view that very much as a bellwether of whether we're doing the right things because if we can have that presence, that brand on campus, that's a clear indicator that what we're doing is different and that we are on path to win in the marketplace. And then finally, we want to be very good stewards of capital and make sure that we're always thinking about this with an eye to shareholder value. And this past year, given the disconnect that we saw between the value that we were creating in the company and our listed share price, we repurchased a record number of shares and share equivalents repurchasing more than 2.5 million shares. We ended 2021 with fewer shares outstanding than when we began the year, and we did that notwithstanding the fact that we continue to grow our head count considerably. We also took our regular ordinary dividend, which was $0.05 a quarter, and we increased it to $0.25 a quarter and we paid a special $3 per share dividend this past year. So looking forward, what are we focused on? First and foremost, it's talent because if we don't have the best individuals who have the best competencies who share our values and vision and are best positioned to serve clients that we cannot achieve our goal of being the best investment bank possible. So first and foremost, it's about talent. But talent alone is not sufficient if you don't have a best-in-class culture. So our days are spent attracting best-in-class talent and then making sure that, that talent can be developed that, that talent can use an apprenticeship model to become the best at this practice and to do so in a culture that's centered around collaboration to make sure that all of the competencies, all the capabilities that we have as a firm can be brought to bear in a collaborative manner to ensure that our clients get the best advice that our firm is able to deliver. It's also important that we continue to expand our footprint. Our footprint continues to expand geographically as we have more points of presence. Our footprint continues to expand as we have greater sector expertise, and our footprint continues to expand just by the sheer number of senior practitioners that we have who can take relationships and to connect [ also ] to make sure that our unique value proposition is more understood and better accessible to more and more clients around the globe. Ultimately, what are we achieving? We're aspiring to be the best of what we can do from the practice of giving advice and raising capital and being a capital-light investment bank. We want to ensure that at all times, we have a best-in-class reputation. We want to ensure that at all times, we are attracting the best of the next-generation of financial professionals. And ultimately, this translates, we believe, into best-in-class financial results. So with that, I will pause and then ask my colleague, Sharon Pearson, to talk about one of our accomplishments of great import this past year, which was our inaugural corporate sustainability report. Sharon?

Thanks very much, Paul, and good morning, everyone. We wanted to highlight to our shareholders that we published our corporate sustainability report about this one late last year. You can find a copy of the report on the Investor Relations section of our website, and we encourage you to read the report and please reach out to us if you have any questions or if there's anything we can help answer for you. We aligned the report around a standard called SASB, which is focused on investment banks in the brokerage industry and really kind of focusing on the material risk of those companies. And that's what our investors had asked to focus on, and that's how that was a standard we use. But this was really a combination of collaboration across the firm, across many different divisions within the firm and really reflects sort of the level of collaboration and partnership in everything we do. The report is also a very clear and easily accessible way to communicate what's important to us. Our focus on long-term investment, as Paul talked about, our culture centered on our people and collaboration. And so what we did in the report is we divided it into 5 different sections. We talk about our people, the importance of our culture of attracting, retaining and developing talent. We talk about our businesses, particularly how we think about advising clients around ESG. We talk about governance and how we think about risk. And we also focus on our community and giving back and as well on the environment. So this is our first year. We plan to publish this report every year. And we really encourage your feedback and your questions, and we look forward to continuing to report on this on an annual basis. And with that, I'm going to turn it back to Paul.

Thank you, Sharon. And I think it's the time today to take questions from our share owners. So I'd ask Sal to read the questions that we've received.

Our first question comes from a shareholder. And he notes that this year's meeting is a virtual meeting. What are our plans, thoughts for next year's meeting and meetings going forward, virtual or in person, what do you think, Paul?

We're accountable to our share owners, and I believe that our shareholders deserve the opportunity to visit with the Board and the management team on an annual basis. Unfortunately, COVID and this global pandemic has intervened. And to the extent the health backdrop is one where we feel comfortable that we're not putting people in harm's way by all congregating next year, we will certainly make that a priority. But ultimately, we have to make health and safety first. And if we can be comfortable in that environment and by all means, we very much want to visit with and hear from face-to-face our shareholders.

Next question. What do you see as the 3 pillars of the PJT culture? And what are we doing to protect and enlarge these pillars at the company?

I don't know if we have 3 pillars. We have a foundation and a foundation is held up in many different ways. But ultimately, we want individuals to do the right thing. They come to this firm with the right motivations. They believe in client service. They believe in excellence. They believe in responsiveness. They are always focused on telling the client what has been their clients' best interest even if it's not in our firm's best interest that we manage complex in an appropriate manner and that at all times, we are a firm that we can all be proud of. But at the same time, because this is an intense business. We want to make sure that people engage with one another. They respect one another that when we look around that we have a firm that is a representative of the broader population that we have a diversity of opinions, and we have diversity of ideas that we have diversity in all respects. So there are many things that make our firm special but it's more challenging to continue that if we're all remote. And that's why, again, with the caveat that we need to be very mindful of health and safety precautions as we continue to deal with the challenges and ravages of COVID, the more that we're in the office together, the more that we can create and continue to mold our culture into something that is truly differentiated. When I refer to 8,500 campus applications, I think it is reflective of our distinctive culture. Individuals understand quite quickly that we are a different firm with a different ethos, a different way of doing the business and that attracts a lot of individuals to our firm, and we need to make sure that we continue to move that forward. But continuing to make sure that we're all together on a frequent basis is an important bedrock of that.

I'm going to combine 2 questions that I think they're related at least in my mind that they are related. What are you seeing in the market currently that is causing you to be concerned? And how are the geopolitical tensions impacting PJT operations and do you see this impact increasing or decreasing through the rest of 2022.

Look, we live in dangerous times and we live in complex times. We are a society that has embraced globalization. And as the world has become more precarious, increasingly, companies are needing to retreat, and that is creating all sorts of issues as it relates to supply chain issues, access to natural resources and the like. In addition, given all the extraordinary fiscal and monetary stimulus that was applied throughout the pandemic to ensure that we did not have a deep doable recession. A lot of that needs to be removed from the marketplace, which has caused interest rates to rise. There are significant inflationary pressures. So everywhere you look, there is worry and trouble I think we're on a nice edge right now from a geopolitical perspective, things could get much better. Things could continue as they are or things could deteriorate. And that's an environment which we're all living in today, and I think we're all feeling, but that's also an environment where differentiated advice and counsel matters. And as the world becomes more complex as decision-making becomes more complex as it becomes more difficult to sort of sift through all of the competing and conflicting signals coming out politically and economically, having trusted advisers matters more. And in that environment, we thrive. So we really need to be focused on our clients at this time, and that's why some of the relaxation of travel restrictions is beneficial because the more we can be with clients, the more we can better understand what's on their minds, the more we can be integrated into their decision-making process, the better advice that we could give. Now what's my economic forecast for the year? If my economic forecast is, I'm not sure. And I think anyone who really knows isn't really being candid because the reality is no one knows. We have scenarios as to how things can improve. We have scenarios as to how things can evolve and we have scenarios as to how things can deteriorate and a lot of this is really making sure that our clients have a sober appreciation of how if certain things play out, what the consequences are for their company. But we have a diversified business with a broad set of capabilities. And as a result of that, we're built to thrive in almost any market environment, which sets us apart from many others.

Great. This next question touches a little bit about what you were talking about during your presentation, but the question is, as an individual investor, I'm trying to get some color on the capital return program over time. Will the share count meaningfully begin to be reduced by the buybacks and likewise is a further dividend increase or special dividend still on the table despite the recent raise? And then part 2 of that question is what criteria did you use in deciding to grant the special dividend that we rented last year.

Okay. There's a lot in that. I think we have talked about 3 capital pillars. One is to invest in talent. And we need to make sure at all times that we're investing to make this firm stronger a year from now, 5 years from now, 10 years from now. And as a result, we're always focused on making sure that we're investing in the business. So investment has to be number 1 and if we try and focus on capital return and that constrains our ability to invest, we will have weakened our firm or we will have failed to seize an opportunity to strengthen our firm. So we are in the early stages of growing our firm. We're not chasing growth, but when we see opportunity to enhance our capabilities, enhance our footprint to make our firm stronger by investing in talent, we're going to do that. In a hybrid world, we need to invest more in IT and systems. We need to continue to invest in our firm to make sure that we can leave to the next generation of leaders, a stronger firm. That is always going to be #1. Now the beauty of our business is highly cash generative and even with a very expansive investment policy, we will more often than not have additional capital. And then the question is, does that capital go to repurchase shares to offset some of the dilution from employee recruitment or does it go to dividends? And we have been very clear from the beginning that we do not want our owners to see their ownership stakes diluted if it can be avoided and we can create value in so doing. Given how the shares have traded over the years relative to the value that we see that we're building, we think we've been able to give individuals a [ 2 4 ], which is to either maintain or increase their ownership by holding or reducing the shares outstanding and at the same time, creating value because we're repurchasing shares at values less than the value that we see in the business. Even with those 2 important priorities from time to time, we will find that there's still additional capital left over. And if and when those opportunities present we will judiciously rethink the dividend, and that's exactly what we've done.

Last question, Paul. So given the current environment, what are our plans for our office space footprint in New York City? And part 2 what do you think is the future for Manhattan-based REITs or Manhattan-based real estate?

Why don't we start with Manhattan-based real estate. I am by nature an optimist, and I think you can't be a Chief Executive Officer and not be an optimist, and I've seen New York struggle many times from the fiscal crisis in the '70s to the terrible attack on 9/11. And time and time again, New York has rebounded. There's so much to offer in the city is where young people want to be, certainly for a portion of their professional careers. It has extraordinary educational infrastructure. It's a cultural leader. It is the heart and soul of the financial industry. So I believe while it may be a bumpy ride, as we cast our gaze further and further down the road, it will appear better and better. But I know what you take my words as anything other than my own personal opinion in that regard. Now as it relates to office space, we are still in a high-growth mode, and we continue to grow our head count considerably. And as a result, we're likely to need more space, not less, in New York. What we are doing is we're trying to rethink the office experience to make sure that the office environment is a state-of-the-art environment that is welcoming to our colleagues so that they want to come to the office. That is a safe environment that it enables this hybrid in-person remote work cadence that's rapidly evolved and that we're going to continue to think about the configuration of our office space, and that's a global matter. But I think the reality is we're a high-growth company. And over time, you're going to see us need more space, not less.

No more questions.

So with that, I would like to conclude by thanking everyone for participating in this year's Annual Meeting of Shareholders. And our further hope is that we will be able to do this next year in person. And with that, I wish you all a good day.