Full Transcript: PJT Partners Q2 2026 Earnings Call

PJT Partners (NYSE: PJT ) released second-quarter financial results and hosted an earnings call on Tuesday. Read the complete transcript below. APIs provide real-time access to earnings call transcripts and financial data. Visit to learn more.

Access the full call at Summary PJT Partners reported record second quarter and first half revenues, with a 20% increase in Q2 revenues to $486 million and a 24% increase for the first half to $904 million. Adjusted pre-tax income and EPS also saw significant increases, with 32% and 28% rises, respectively, in Q2, highlighting strong operational performance across all business segments. The company emphasized ongoing investments in strategic advisory and restructuring, with a focus on expanding their geographic footprint and capabilities, particularly in AI and technology infrastructure.

Management announced a CFO transition, with Helen Mates stepping down and Arun Kalra taking over, ensuring a seamless transition and continuity in financial leadership. The restructuring business delivered record results, maintaining a leading position in global restructuring rankings, while strategic advisory also posted record revenues amidst a volatile but constructive M&A environment. Future guidance suggests slower revenue growth in the second half compared to the first, though all business segments are on track for record performance. 25 per share, and the company ended the quarter with $535 million in cash and no funded debt.

Full Transcript OPERATOR Good day and welcome to the PJT Partners second quarter 2026 earnings call. Today's conference is being recorded. At this time I would like to turn the conference over to Sharon Pearson, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, ma'am.

Sharon Pearson, Head of Investor Relations Thank you very much and good morning and welcome to the PJT Partners second quarter 2026 earnings conference call. I'm Sharon Pearson, Head of Investor Relations at PJT, and joining me today is Paul Taubman, our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, and Helen Mates, our Chief Financial Officer. Before I turn the call over to Paul, I want to point out that during the course of this conference call we may make a number of forward-looking statements.

These forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties and there are important factors that could cause actual outcomes to differ materially from those indicated in these statements. com. I want to remind you that the company assumes no duty to update any forward-looking statements and that the presentation we make today contains non-GAAP financial measures, which we believe are meaningful in evaluating the company's performance. For detailed disclosures on these non-GAAP metrics and their GAAP reconciliations, you should refer to the financial data contained within the press release we issued this morning, also available on our website.

And with that, I'll turn the call over to Paul. Paul Taubman, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Thank you, Sharon. Good morning and thank you for joining today's earnings call. Earlier today we reported record results across the board; second quarter and first half revenues, adjusted pre-tax income and adjusted EPS were all the highest in our firm's history.

For the second quarter, revenues were $486 million, up 20%. 97, up 28% from year-ago levels. For the first half of the year, revenues increased 24%, adjusted pre-tax income increased 39% and adjusted EPS increased 36% compared to 2025 levels. When we began this journey, we characterized our firm as an alpha play on strategic advisory.

For more than a decade, we've been committed to consistent and continuing investment in our strategic advisory business with the goal of enhancing our footprint, our capabilities and our brand. These investments have transformed the scale and scope of our strategic advisory business and it's clearly evident in our financial results. Even with this significant buildout, we still have much more to build and much more to achieve, and as that buildout progresses, it will drive opportunities for additional growth in our other businesses. We are increasingly becoming an alpha play not just in strategic advisory, but across all of our businesses.

Before I turn the call over to Helen, I'd like to say a few words about our CFO transition. Helen will be stepping down as Chief Financial Officer on October 1 after more than a decade of extraordinary service. She will, however, remain with us through year end to ensure a seamless transition. Helen has been my partner and sounding board from day one.

A lot of what we have accomplished reflects her leadership, her dedication and her uncompromising integrity. On behalf of the board and all her colleagues, I want to thank her for her innumerable contributions to PJT Partners. I would also like to congratulate Arun Kalra on his elevation from Director of Finance to CFO. Since joining PJT in 2016, Arun has worked side by side with Helen to develop our global finance function.

I am confident that Arun will build upon the strong foundation Helen has established and help write the next chapters of our growth story. After Helen takes you through our financial results, I will review our business performance and outlook in greater detail. Helen Mates, Chief Financial Officer Thank you, Paul. It has been a real privilege to serve in this role, and I would like to thank our investors and research analysts for your partnership, your insights and your support of our firm over the years.

I'm looking forward to partnering with Arun as he steps into the CFO role on October 1st, and my priority will be to ensure that this is a smooth transition. Now turning to our financial results, beginning with revenue, total revenues for the second quarter were $486 million, up 20% year over year. For the six months ended June 30, total revenues were $904 million, up 24% year over year, and as Paul mentioned, a record for both the second quarter and six-month periods. Revenues in all our businesses increased for both the second quarter and first six-month periods, with record revenues in Strategic Advisory and Restructuring.

We had a number of transaction completions that met the criteria for revenues to be pulled forward in the second quarter, totaling $35 million across eight transactions, which is $14 million more than year-ago pull-forwards. Turning to expenses, consistent with prior quarters, we presented the expenses with certain non-GAAP adjustments which are more fully described in our 8-K. 5% for the same period last year. This ratio represents our current best estimate for full-year 2026.

Total adjusted non-compensation expense was $57 million in the second quarter, up 10% year over year, and $114 million for the first half, up 12% year over year. 6% in the first half. The main drivers of the expense increase for the first half of the year were the same as the first quarter: higher occupancy costs and depreciation expense relating to the expansion of our global office footprint, higher travel and business-related expenses, and higher professional fees. We now expect our non-comp expense growth for the year to be slightly higher than previous guidance and closer to 14% year over year.

The increase primarily reflects the expectation of elevated business-related expense year over year, particularly travel and related and professional fees, as well as higher expenses associated with continued investments in AI and technology infrastructure. Turning to adjusted pre-tax income, we reported record second quarter and first half adjusted pre-tax income of $106 million and $189 million, respectively. 6% for the same period last year. The provision for taxes: as with prior quarters, we've presented our results as if all partnership units had been converted to shares and that all of our income was taxed at a corporate tax rate.

5%. This is our current estimate for the full year and in line with prior guidance. 51 for the first half, up 36% from the same period last year. 6 million shares, down 2% versus a year ago.

During the quarter, we repurchased approximately 498,000 shares and share equivalents, primarily through open market repurchases. 1 million shares. On the balance sheet, we ended the quarter with $535 million in cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments, and we have no funded debt outstanding. 25 per share.

I'll turn the call back to Paul. Paul Taubman, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Thank you, Helen. S. S.

completed restructurings. Not surprisingly, given this strong market position, our restructuring team delivered record results for the second quarter and first half, comfortably ahead of prior-year levels. We continue to operate in an environment of sustained demand for liability management and restructuring advice. The speed of technological change and dislocation is challenging companies across industries.

Many companies are dealing with uncomfortably high leverage, higher financing costs and challenged operating models. And for a subset of these companies, these challenges are existential. Unlike historical norms, this concentrated stress is playing out against a backdrop of broadly constructive macroeconomic conditions and favorable financing markets. Simply put, we anticipate restructuring activity to remain elevated for the foreseeable future.

We also expect our ever more powerful Strategic Advisory franchise to expand our opportunity set for restructuring and other liability management services. Turning to PJT Park Hill, significant growth in private capital solutions more than offset declines in primary fundraising, enabling PJT Park Hill revenues to increase for the second quarter and first half compared to year-ago levels. Our PCS business benefited from close collaboration with Strategic Advisory and access to an extensive network of global LPs. Given PCS's strong secular growth characteristics and the opportunity to leverage this integrated platform, we continue to invest in this business.

On the primary side, our differentiated, high-quality pipeline of fundraisers should enable us to deliver strong relative performance even as the overall primary fundraising market remains challenging. Turning to Strategic Advisory: for the second quarter and first half of the year, our Strategic Advisory business delivered record revenues, significantly above year-ago levels. We continue to operate in a favorable, albeit volatile, deal environment. Despite the stop-start cadence of activity in the first half of the year, the market has been broadly constructive but challenged by continuing geopolitical and AI uncertainties, which add to volatility.

Even though the M&A market has gained steam as the year has progressed and we are seeing a sharp increase in the number of companies who are investigating M&A opportunities, the annualized level of M&A activity is only up single-digit percentages from year-ago levels. Against that backdrop, our M&A backlog continues to build, with mandate counts at record levels, up more than 20% compared to year-ago levels. Our pre-announced pipeline, which reflects revenue potential from these mandates, is up an even greater percentage and is also at record levels.

Notwithstanding the sizable number of closings we experienced in Q2, our announced pending-close backlog increased appreciably from Q1 levels and ended Q2 just slightly below year-ago levels. As we look ahead during our journey, we have been steadfast in our commitment to value-enhancing long-term investments that scale and strengthen our business. Over time, these investments have been essential drivers of our growth, enabling us to build our capabilities, our footprint and our brand. For the full year, all of our businesses are on track for record performance.

We do, however, expect our revenue growth rate for the full year to be less than that achieved in the first half of the year. As before, we remain confident in our near, intermediate and long-term growth prospects. And with that, we will now take your questions. OPERATOR Ladies and gentlemen, at this time the floor is open for your questions.

To ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. To get out of the queue, press star two. Our first question today comes from Devin Ryan with Citizens Bank. Your line is now open.

Devin Ryan, Analyst at Citizens Bank Good morning and thanks for taking the questions. I just want to start and say congratulations to Helen and Arun as well. It's been a pleasure, consummate professional and Arun, best wishes to you as well. Looking forward to working with you.

Question where I'd like to start here just is on the strategic advisory business, and when I look at the—Paul—the partner totals in that group, you had 91 at the end of the second quarter. I think 19 have been on the platform for less than two years, so that ratio keeps declining. It's only 20%. And so that's been one thing that we've looked at just to think about kind of the maturation of the broader PJT Partners advisory business.

And I appreciate there's still a lot of white space from here to grow in the absolute. But do you feel like we're getting close to maybe more of a steady state of productivity for kind of the partner group here as now a smaller number, less than two years on platform? Just trying to think about kind of where we are in the maturation of that business and the productivity per partner really? Paul Taubman, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer I think the short answer is no.

I think we're building and you tend to see step function changes and it's not just a one factor model. You need to look at where the investment is and when you get to critical mass in those investments. So if you're going to build out a region, if you have one individual who's been there for an extended period of time, that may be necessary but not sufficient. Each partner does not operate independent of the other partners and the overall franchise.

And what we're seeing increasingly are the network effects as we continue to build out. And it's not just time in seat, it's also whether or not we've achieved critical mass in any one of our initiatives. And it's also brand awareness, brand building, walk in, all of those things come together. And I think we're still early days in seeing the true potential of what we're building.

Devin Ryan, Analyst at Citizens Bank Okay, good to hear. Thank you. And then just as a follow up on the restructuring outlook, appreciate, you know, continue to expect kind of elevated levels of activity. Can we maybe put a finer point on just what you're seeing in the environment and into the degree of things remaining elevated?

You know, we're kind of approaching maturity walls. There's obviously some consternation in the software space. You know, is there a scenario here where that could still have reasonable growth as we look out in the coming years, or is it elevated just mean kind of around similar levels? I'm not sure if we can get any deeper on the thought there.

Thank you. Paul Taubman, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Yeah, look, I mean there's sort of the overall market and then there's our addressable market. And I see our addressable market continuing to expand. And even though we have a leadership position, I see our addressable market continuing to expand for really three reasons.

Right. One is we continue to expand geographically, so we're opening up new markets where we have an opportunity to claim our rightful share of that activity. I think the second is there are relationships and deep domain expertise that continues to be brought to bear that when it comes to the borrower side, as we build out our strategic advisory platform, we have more looks. And the third is we've had very strong success with the most sophisticated and repeat consumers of liability management services, which are private equity firms in the old space.

As we continue to build out our coverage and touch more of those companies, we also increase our opportunities. Now, if you asked me, where are we in the overall cycle, I think we're closer to normal than we are to where we've been historically. I've repeatedly said that looking in the rearview mirror, you're seeing abnormally light levels of activity, partly because we had interest rates that were near zero and because we had very flexible documents with very few covenants and long dated maturities. But ultimately many of those investments, you know, end up stumbling at some point and they need to be managed actively.