Perella Weinberg Partners 2026 Q2 Earnings Call
Review the key takeaways and the transcript of this earnings call.
- Perella Weinberg reported second quarter 2026 revenues of $157 million, up 1% year over year, with first half revenues totaling $305 million, down 17% compared to last year.
- Announced transactions have increased significantly, with nearly 40% of year-to-date announcements occurring since June, driven by elevated activity in healthcare, industrials, energy, and TMT sectors.
- The restructuring and liability management pipeline grew with 10 transactions announced in the quarter, supported by a large number of companies facing significant 2028 and 2029 maturities and rating agency pressure.
- The private funds advisory business reached a milestone by closing transactions and is gaining traction quickly.
- The announced and pending backlog is nearly two and a half times higher than a year ago, with total booked plus backlog up over 30% year-over-year.
- Adjusted compensation ratio was 71% for the first half, expected to decline toward a full-year target of 67%.
- Adjusted non-compensation expenses were $31 million for the quarter, down $5 million year over year and $6 million quarter over quarter, totaling $69 million for the first half, down 20% year over year.
- Year to date, $73 million has been returned to equity holders through dividends, distributions, and RSU settlements, with over $765 million returned since going public.
- The company ended the quarter with $116 million in cash, no debt, 74 million class A shares, and 20 million partnership units outstanding.
- A quarterly dividend of $0.07 per share was declared.
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Transcript
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Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Perella Weinberg second quarter 2026 earnings conference call. Currently, all callers have been placed in a listen-only mode, and following management's prepared remarks, the call will be open for your questions. If you would like to ask a question at that time, please press star one on your telephone. If you would like to remove yourself from the queue, press star two. Finally, at any time, if you should need any operator assistance, please press star zero. Please be advised that today's call is being recorded. I will now turn the call over to Ms. Taylor Reinhardt, Head of Communications and Marketing. Please go ahead, ma'am. Thank you, operator, and welcome all.
Joining me today are Andrew Bednar, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman, and Alex Gottschalk, Chief Financial Officer and Chief Operating Officer. Before we begin, I'd like to note that this call may contain forward-looking statements, including Perella Weinberg's expectations of future financial and business performance and 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's 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. 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 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.
Thank you, Taylor, and good morning. Today we reported second quarter revenues of $157 million, up 1% from a year ago, bringing our first half revenues to $305 million, down 17% compared to last year. Our booked revenue does not yet reflect the momentum we're seeing across our business. Announced transactions have picked up significantly. We're running ahead of where we were at this point in 2025. The pace has accelerated this summer with nearly 40% of our year-to-date announcements occurring since the start of June. Our announcements are M&A weighted with recent elevated activity in our healthcare, industrials, energy, and TMT businesses. In addition, our restructuring and liability management pipeline continues to grow with new mandates and with 10 transactions announced in the quarter.
The number of companies facing significant 2028 and 2029 maturities and increasing rating agency pressure is larger than ever, and we expect the environment for our financing and capital solutions business to remain robust. We also reached an important milestone this quarter by closing transactions in our private funds advisory business. We're encouraged by the pipeline we're building in that business, and we're pleased with how quickly this capability is gaining traction with our teams and with our clients. There are two metrics that are the strongest leading indicators of our business, our announced and pending backlog, and this metric is up nearly two and a half times from a year ago. Adding that to booked revenue, our total booked plus announced and pending backlog is up over 30% year-over-year as of today.
The A&P backlog includes a number of large fee events which won't all show up in our 2026 results, but we feel great about the direction of travel and our setup into the back half of 2026 and into 2027. As we indicated on the first quarter call, we expected the year to be back half weighted, and that is exactly what we are seeing, and we continue to invest in talent to scale our business. We have six partners joining in the coming months from the Gleacher Shacklock acquisition and from continued lateral hiring, and we announced a new class of eight partner promotes earlier this week. They, our internally promoted partners, represent roughly 45% of our overall partnership, which is a real testament to the depth of talent we've developed and our ability to grow leaders from within. These are important features of our brand.
Congratulations to our new partners. It's an honor to have them join our partnership, and it's also very well-deserved recognition. Looking at the partnership as a whole, more than a third are in the ramp-up stage with under three years as a partner, which gives us meaningful runway as that group seasons on our platform. Taken together, the acceleration in announcements, the related growth in revenue backlog, our continued investment in partner-led talent, and the build-out of new capabilities in private funds advisory, along with broader coverage in the U.K., our platform continues to strengthen, and this gives us great confidence in our business heading into the back half of the year and well beyond. With that, I'll now turn the call over to Alex to review our financial results and capital management in more detail.
Thank you, Andrew. Starting with expenses, our adjusted compensation ratio was 71% for the first half of the year. With revenue weighted to the back half, we expect that ratio to come down toward our full-year target of 67% as additional revenue is recognized. Our adjusted non-compensation expense of $31 million for the quarter was down $5 million from the prior year period and $6 million from the prior quarter period, driven in part by an insurance recovery and lower bad debt expense. For the first half, adjusted non-compensation expenses totaled $69 million, down 20% from the same period last year. While we expect higher spend in the back half of the year, we remain on track for a single-digit % decrease in full-year adjusted non-comp versus 2025.
As it relates to taxes, we expect our underlying adjusted tax rate, excluding the benefit from our RC vestings, to be in the low to mid 30% range for the remainder of 2026. Turning to capital management. Year to date, we have returned $73 million to equity holders through a combination of dividends, distributions, and RSU settlements. In our five years as a public company, we have returned over $765 million in aggregate, including the retirement of 40 million shares or share equivalents. We remain committed to delivering value to our shareholders through prudent capital management. We ended the quarter with $116 million in cash, no debt, and 74 million class A shares and 20 million partnership units outstanding. This morning, we declared a quarterly dividend of $0.07 per share. With that, operator, please open the line for questions.
Certainly, Ms. Kostuk. Thank you, ma'am. Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, if you do have any questions, again, that's star one, and if you would like to remove yourself from the queue, it's star two. We'll go first this morning to Devin Ryan of Citizens JMP.
Thanks. Good morning, Andrew and Alex.
How are you? Very good.
Hi, Devin. Hi, Devin. Hi.
I want to just maybe start on the backlog commentary and just, Andrew, the momentum that you talked about and heard the comment that I think 40% of the year-to-date announced activity has occurred since June. Obviously things have been picking up quite a bit over the last couple of months here. Can you just talk about maybe what is changing to move conversations to announcement or speed things up? Is it conditions shifting or is it just the way the specific deals are evolving? Then if you just can give a little bit more color around what you're seeing across both the spectrum of large deals versus smaller deals and anything from a geographic perspective too would be helpful.
Thanks. Sure. Thanks, Devin. It's more idiosyncratic, I think, just to the nature of our investments and the boots that we have on the ground.
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