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LAZ, Lazard
Lazard is a global financial advisory and asset management firm with operations in North and South America, Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and Australia.
Lazard provides advice on mergers and acquisitions, capital markets and capital solutions, restructuring and liability management, geopolitics, and other strategic matters, as well as asset management and investment solutions to institutions, corporations, governments, partnerships, family offices, and high net worth individuals.
We focus primarily on two business segments: Financial Advisory and Asset Management.
The business
What it sells, where the money comes from, the kind of company it is.
Next report Est. 10/22–11/4 · the 10-Q for the quarter ended late September · due within 40 days of period end · has filed ~31 days after · the wire records it on arrival
The business in brief
read the 10-K →What this business is and what moves its needle, from its own SEC filings.
- What it is
- Revenue is Financial Advisory (59%) and Asset Management (41%).
- What moves the needle
- Assets under management and the fee rate on them. What decides it: net flows in or out, the market's move on the assets already there (the firm rises and falls with the indices it invests in), the drift toward cheaper passive products, and the operating leverage on a largely fixed cost base. On its own account, the filing leans hardest on pricing power & competition, set against the numbers in what the filing emphasizes, below.
- Is it a good business?
- Operating margin has been modest for a fee business (median 19%). It earns this on little capital, so return on equity has run near 44%, the leverage of a model that needs almost no plant to grow. A high return that does not fade can mark a moat, but whether the assets stay (net flows, not last year's market) is what the flow disclosures and the 10-K settle, not the multiple.
Every line is arithmetic on the company's filings, shown in full in the sections below.
Where the money comes from
read the 10-K →Revenue spreads across 2 segments, the largest Financial Advisory at 59%.
- Financial Advisory59%$1.8B
- Asset Management41%$1.3B
From the segment footnote of the company's own 10-K. Shares are of total revenue; the profit bar shows each segment's share of segment operating profit, before unallocated corporate costs.
The record
Ten years of arithmetic, read across the cycle.
The record, 2016–2025
realized figures from each filing · older years to the left| 2016’16 | 2017’17 | 2018’18 | 2019’19 | 2020’20 | 2021’21 | 2022’22 | 2023’23 | 2024’24 | 2025’25 | TTMTTMJun 2026 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Income statement | |||||||||||
| $2.3B | $2.6B | $2.8B | $2.6B | $2.6B | $3.2B | $2.8B | $2.5B | $3.1B | $3.1B | $3.3B | RevenueRevenue |
| 22.2% | 31.2% | 24.1% | 15.2% | 19.6% | 22.7% | 18.6% | −3.2% | 12.7% | 10.6% | 9.3% | Operating marginOp. mgn |
| 16.6% | 9.6% | 18.7% | 11.1% | 15.7% | 16.5% | 12.9% | −3.0% | 9.2% | 7.6% | 6.9% | Net marginNet mgn |
| — | — | — | — | — | — | — | ($80M) | $386M | $328M | — | Pretax incomePretax |
| $388M | $254M | $527M | $287M | $402M | $528M | $358M | ($75M) | $280M | $237M | $227M | Net incomeNet inc. |
| 24% | — | 22% | 25% | 20% | 26% | 26% | — | 26% | 23% | 22% | Effective tax rateTax rate |
| Cash flow & returns | |||||||||||
| $594M | $1.0B | $665M | $635M | $541M | $826M | $784M | $136M | $707M | $487M | $659M | Owner earningsOwner earn. |
| ($38M) | ($27M) | ($46M) | ($42M) | ($63M) | ($39M) | ($56M) | ($38M) | $134M | ($82M) | — | Investing cash flowInv. cash |
| ($480M) | ($319M) | ($726M) | ($444M) | ($547M) | $196M | ($1.4B) | ($1.6B) | ($440M) | ($464M) | — | Financing cash flowFin. cash |
| ($65M) | $164M | ($90M) | ($28M) | $148M | ($162M) | ($186M) | $30M | ($53M) | $87M | — | Exchange-rate effectFX |
| $51M | $847M | ($163M) | $164M | $113M | $861M | ($791M) | ($1.4B) | $384M | $61M | — | Change in cashΔ cash |
| 31% | 21% | 57% | 47% | 44% | 54% | 64% | -18% | 44% | 27% | 25% | Return on equityROE |
| 4% | −7% | 18% | 5% | 23% | 34% | 32% | −59% | 16% | 6% | 4% | Retained to equityRetained/eq |
| Balance sheet | |||||||||||
| $4.6B | $4.9B | $5.0B | $5.6B | $6.0B | $7.1B | $5.9B | $4.6B | $4.8B | $4.9B | $4.4B | Total assetsAssets |
| $1.2B | $1.5B | $1.2B | $1.2B | $1.4B | $1.5B | $1.2B | $971M | $1.3B | $1.5B | $1.1B | Cash & investmentsCash+inv |
| $3.3B | $3.7B | $4.0B | $5.0B | $5.0B | $5.5B | $4.6B | $4.1B | $4.0B | $4.0B | — | Total liabilitiesTotal liab. |
| — | — | — | — | — | $575M | $583M | $88M | $80M | $78M | — | Redeemable interestsRedeemable |
| $58M | $59M | $53M | $72M | $88M | $103M | $119M | $58M | $49M | $37M | — | Noncontrolling interestsNCI |
| $1.2B | $1.2B | $917M | $610M | $912M | $975M | $556M | $424M | $636M | $874M | $914M | Shareholders’ equityEquity |
| Per share | |||||||||||
| 133M | 132M | 130M | 116M | 113M | 114M | 101M | 89.0M | 102M | 106M | 107M | Shares out (diluted)Shares |
| $17.59 | $19.96 | $21.78 | $22.28 | $22.61 | $28.09 | $27.46 | $28.27 | $29.81 | $29.14 | $30.83 | Revenue / shareRev/sh |
| $2.92 | $1.91 | $4.06 | $2.47 | $3.55 | $4.65 | $3.54 | $-0.85 | $2.73 | $2.23 | $2.11 | EPS (diluted)EPS |
| $4.48 | $7.56 | $5.12 | $5.47 | $4.77 | $7.27 | $7.77 | $1.53 | $6.90 | $4.58 | $6.14 | Owner earnings / shareOE/sh |
| $2.53 | $2.58 | $2.77 | $2.20 | $1.73 | $1.72 | $1.80 | $1.94 | $1.75 | $1.75 | $1.78 | Dividends / shareDiv/sh |
| $9.32 | $9.06 | $7.07 | $5.25 | $8.03 | $8.58 | $5.51 | $4.76 | $6.21 | $8.22 | $8.52 | Book value / shareBVPS |
| 9-yr | 5-yr | |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue / share | +5.8%/yr | +5.2%/yr |
| Owner earnings / share | +0.3%/yr | −0.8%/yr |
| EPS | −3.0%/yr | −8.9%/yr |
| Dividends / share | −4.0%/yr | +0.3%/yr |
| Capital spending / share | +0.3%/yr | −11.9%/yr |
| Book value / share | −1.4%/yr | +0.4%/yr |
Quality & stewardship
Returns, the balance sheet, capital allocation, and pay.
Owner’s Scorecard
Is it a good business?
- Operating margin 10.6%Modest fee marginOperating income $328M ÷ revenue $3.1BIndustry peers: median 21%
What this means
The heart of a asset manager: how much of each fee dollar survives the cost of running the business. Fees ride on assets under management, so the swing factors are net flows in or out and the market's move on the assets already there; the cost base is largely fixed, which lifts margins in a bull market and squeezes them in a bear one. A high margin held for years, through a market it does not control, is the operational mark of a real franchise.
- Net margin 7.6%SolidNet income $237M ÷ revenue $3.1B
What this means
What reaches the owner after tax and interest. For a capital-light fee business this should be a wide share of revenue; when it is thin despite a high operating margin, debt taken on for acquisitions is usually the reason, so read it next to the balance sheet.
- Return on equity 27%Very high (≥25%)Net income $237M ÷ equity $874MIndustry peers: median 17%
What this means
Because the business ties up little capital, a healthy fee stream throws off a high return on the equity behind it. Read it with the buyback record: returning capital lifts this ratio honestly, but heavy debt taken to do so can flatter it.
All figures as filed; the source filing is linked above.
Lease obligations
the lease note, SEC EDGAR →Debt by another name. What the business owes on the property, aircraft, stores and equipment it rents rather than owns is a fixed claim due on a schedule; added back to the debt, it is the true leverage. That ladder, and what it adds to the debt on the page above.
Lease payments by year, scaled to the largest; “later” is everything beyond year five, shown apart. These are the contractual cash payments, before the interest the filing imputes back out to the balance-sheet liability.
True leverage: debt plus leases
Counting the leases the way Buffett does, the fixed claims on this business come to $2.2B, of which the leases are 22%. The lease wall above and the debt schedule together are the calendar of what must be paid, and when.
Lease ladder read from the ASC 842 tags in the company’s Dec 31, 2025 annual report and reconciled: the yearly buckets sum to the undiscounted total, which less the imputed interest equals the balance-sheet liability; a ladder that doesn’t tie out is withheld.
Management, ownership & pay
read the proxy →From the proxy: how much of the business the people running it own, and how they are paid, beside what the business earned for its owners in the same years.
| Fiscal year | Chief executive | Pay, as filed | “Actually paid” | Owner earnings |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | Mr. Jacobs | $11.8M | $26.3M | $826M |
| 2022 | Mr. Jacobs | $10.9M | $16.8M | $784M |
| 2023 | Mr. Jacobs | $10.9M | $11.8M | $136M |
| 2023 | Mr. Orszag | $30.8M | $34.4M | $136M |
| 2024 | Mr. Orszag | $11.4M | $62.2M | $707M |
| 2025 | Mr. Orszag | $13.7M | $10.1M | $487M |
Both pay figures are the company’s own, from the pay-versus-performance table its proxy statement files. “As filed” is the Summary Compensation Table total: salary, bonus, and equity awards at their value on the day of grant. “Actually paid” is the SEC’s prescribed recalculation, which re-marks those equity awards to what they became as they vested; it can swing far above or below the filed figure in either direction, and negative years occur. Owner earnings are the whole business's, from the record above, for the same fiscal years.
- Insider ownership1%
The stake all directors and executive officers hold together, per the 2026 proxy: skin in the game, the first thing Munger reads.
What an owner would ask, FY2025
read the 10-K →- Which reported numbers are a judgment call?Management names Revenue recognition, Credit & receivables as critical estimates
each rests partly on management's judgment; the filing's note sets out the assumptionsverify →
The questions the record and the charts do not answer on their own; each carries the figure and the place to look.
Peers, Capital Markets & Asset Management
The same industry, side by side on fee margins. Each column names the period it is read over; the group median at the foot is the line to read each figure against.
| Company | Revenuelatest FY, USD | Op. marginmedian over the record | Net marginmedian over the record | ROEmedian over the record |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| BAMBrookfield Asset Mgmt | $3.9B | 50.3% | 62.3% | 65% |
| EVREvercore | $3.9B | 21.1% | 15.0% | 29% |
| LAZLazard | $3.1B | 19.1% | 12.0% | 44% |
| JHGJanus Henderson Group plc | $3.1B | 24.5% | 18.8% | 10% |
| OWLBlue Owl Capital | $2.9B | 14.3% | 2.7% | 1% |
| HLIHoulihan Lokey | $2.6B | 20.5% | 16.1% | 18% |
| MORNMorningstar Inc. | $2.4B | 17.4% | 15.2% | 17% |
| AMGAffiliated Managers Group Inc. | $2.1B | 43.8% | 24.3% | 17% |
| Group median | — | 20.8% | 15.6% | 18% |
The price
What a price has to assume.
What the price implies
reverse-DCFType today's close and see the owner-earnings growth you'd have to believe to justify it, beside what Lazard has delivered.
Through the cycle, Lazard earns about $745M on its 24.0% median owner-earnings margin. This year’s 15.7% margin runs below that; the reported figure may understate a lean year. Normalize, below, values the price on that through-cycle figure rather than the latest year.
—
9.0% = the 4.71% 10-year Treasury (Aug 18, 2026) + 4.29 points of equity premium. The rate you require is yours to set.
Enter a price above to run it.
A dated snapshot of the price you typed, the assumptions you set, and what the page showed for them. A snapshot is never edited after it is saved. Your notebook is yours alone — the commitment states what is stored and what we will never do.
Graham capped the multiple at 15×; Buffett and Munger let that rule go: a wonderful business can deserve 50× if the thesis holds. The gate marks the bargain-hunter's floor.
Prefilled with the 10-year Treasury (4.71%, as of Aug 18, 2026). Edit it for today’s exact figure, or a AAA corporate yield.
Graham measured a stock against the bond you could own instead, the heart of his margin of safety. Enter a price above to weigh the owner-earnings yield against this bond.
Owner earnings $659M on 111M shares outstanding, per the 10-Q cover, as of 2026-07-17; net debt $590M. The base is the latest year by default; Normalize values it on the through-cycle median owner-earnings margin (to avoid paying on a peak year). Net of stock comp treats option pay as the expense it is. The dials set the multiple a growth belief justifies; the price, and every dollar on this page, is yours.
Manual order: ← LAUR its page in the Manual LB →
Industry order: ← KLAR the Capital Markets & Asset Management chapter LDI →