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Text: I am Patrick Suehnholz, Greenhill's Head of Investor Relations.
And joining me on the call today is Scott Bok, our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer.
These statements are based on our current expectations regarding future events that, by their nature, are outside of the firm's control and are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and assumptions.
Or a discussion of some of the risks and factors that could affect the firm's future results, please see our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including our annual report on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q and current reports on Form 8-K.
We reported first quarter revenue of $68.9 million, operating profit of $7.2 million and net income per share of $0.09.
Our quarterly revenue was 3% higher than last year and our operating profit and earnings per share compared to a loss last year.
Given that this quarter followed one where we had our best quarterly revenue ever, we see these as respectable results that mark a solid start to the year.
We are also pleased that after quarter end, we further accelerated the pay down of our debt and that we have made good progress toward our recruiting goals.
I will now comment very briefly on our operations as we continue through the pandemic, then on the state of each of our businesses, then speak on each of our key financial metrics.
As I've said in each recent quarterly call, our firm has operated well throughout the pandemic.
At this point, most of our offices have at least some people back from home, and some are operating fairly normally.
In-person attendance will naturally grow as more people get vaccinated and the virus risk declines, both generally and particularly for our people, most of whom I expect have been or will be vaccinated.
To the extent people are still working from home and may be for some time to come, we have proven that we can be very effective at both executing for existing clients and winning new clients in that format.
But we do think working from the office is better for our team's productivity, efficiency, training, morale and other reasons.
So our goal is to get largely back to that over the next few months in most of our office locations.
Turning to our businesses.
M&A activity is stronger than it has been in recent years in each of our main markets.
It is particularly strong in the U.S. where it is running at a record pace.
We see this in the fact that we are winning a significantly larger number of assignments than we did last year just pre-pandemic or the year before, which benefited from a good economy and no unusual health risks.
The timing of deal announcements and completions is what determines quarterly results.
So those results vary as they always have, given the serendipitous nature of deal timing.
But we feel like we're off to a good start this year in all respects.
Consistent with industrywide statistics, the U.S. is the most active part of the firm, but we are also very busy in place is the were less active last year, like Australia and Canada.
Our hope and expectation is that as other countries emerge from the pandemic period as the U.S. appears to be now, we will see economic and deal activity rebound sharply there just as we are seeing it in the U.S. now.
With respect to restructuring activity, I said last quarter that activity had slowed considerably from last year's frenetic pace, and that continues to be the case.
There will come a time when financing markets will tighten simply because that's always the case.
And there will then be another surge of restructuring activity.
In the meantime, we are supplementing our traditional restructuring activity with an increased emphasis on financing advisory work.
The debt markets have become far more diverse in recent years with the proliferation and growth of so-called alternative lenders.
We can be very helpful to our clients in accessing that market.
Lastly, after a very slow period last year, the market for private capital advisory transactions is again very active.
In our private capital advisory business, we are busy in Europe and Asia doing transactions in the secondary market, including many larger, more complex assignments for the general partner of a private equity fund, is accessing the secondary market to achieve strategic goals.
In the U.S., we've made good progress rebuilding our team.
And as part of that, we have taken steps to build a primary fundraising business, which we think can be productive in its own right, but also highly complementary to the secondary business.
We expect very shortly to have a fully functioning global team for the private capital advisory business, encompassing primary capital raising, secondary sales and general partner-led fund restructurings.
We have other recruits well in progress and expect this year to be an important year in terms of M&A recruiting with an emphasis on the U.S. market and on adding incremental industry sector expertise.
For a wide range of reasons, we are seeing a lot of good candidates.
Now turning to our costs.
Our compensation costs were lower than last year in absolute terms, but our compensation ratio was higher than our target range.
Our objective is to bring the ratio down to the target range for the full year.
Where we end up, as always, depends heavily on our revenue outcome for the year.
Our non-compensation costs were lower than last year and are running at a rate consistent with our target.
There were a few unusual expenses this quarter, primarily related to foreign exchange losses, and we continue to look for opportunities to drive costs lower even post pandemic.
Our interest expense continues to trend lower, given declining debt levels and continued low short-term interest rates.
Our tax rate of 26% for the quarter after adjusting for the impact of charges related to the vesting of restricted stock is consistent with our guidance.
We ended the quarter with $87.9 million of cash and $326.9 million of debt.
We paid down another $20 million of that debt since quarter end.
We also declared our usual $0.05 quarterly dividend and bought back just under a million shares and share equivalents for a total cost of $14.5 million.
We have $35.5 million of repurchase authority available for the year ahead through next January.
As I said last quarter, our principal focus is on deleveraging, but we also intend to purchase shares in a prudent manner to further enhance the upside potential for continuing shareholders.
Our employees currently own about half of the economics of the firm through stock and restricted stock and thus are fully aligned in trying to drive shareholder value in the quarters and years to come.
With that, I'll be happy to take any questions.

user
compname reports q1 earnings per share of $0.09.
q1 revenue rose 3 percent to $68.9 million.
q1 earnings per share $0.09.

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