Good morning ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Evercore Third Quarter and Nine Months 2015 Financial Results Conference Call. During today's presentation, all parties will be in a listen-only mode. Following the presentation, the conference call will open for questions. This conference call is being recorded today, Monday, November 2, 2015. I would now like to turn the conference call over to your host, Evercore's Chief Financial Officer, Bob Walsh. Please go ahead, sir. Robert B. Walsh - Senior Managing Director & Chief Financial Officer: Good morning and thank you for joining us today for Evercore's Third Quarter and Nine Months 2015 Financial Results Conference Call. I'm Bob Walsh, Evercore's Chief Financial Officer, and joining me on the call today are Ralph Schlosstein, President and Chief Executive Officer; and Roger Altman, our Chairman. After our prepared remarks, we will open up the call for questions. Earlier today, we issued three press releases announcing the extension of our M&A alliance with Mizuho and our plan to commence a secondary offering by Mizuho of all of the shares underlying a warrant that they hold. This will result in an offering to the public of 3.1 million shares. Ralph will comment on this transaction and our ongoing relationship with Mizuho in our opening remarks. Also Evercore's third quarter and nine month 2015 financial results were released. The company's discussion of the third quarter results today is complementary to that press release, which is available on our website at www.evercore.com. This conference call is being webcast live on the Investor Relations' section of the website and an archive of it will be available beginning approximately one hour after the conclusion of this call for 30 days. I want to point out that during the course of this conference call,…

Thank you, sir. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. [Operator Instruction] Our first question comes from Dev Ryan of JMP Securities. Your line is now open.

Thanks, good morning. Congratulations on a nice quarter. Robert B. Walsh - Senior Managing Director & Chief Financial Officer: Thank you. Ralph L. Schlosstein - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Hi, thanks.

I guess, first question, just trying to understand the expansion to the global relationship with Mizuho, essentially, what that entails, what changes? And then, if possible, any sense, order magnitude around what that could mean or what you hope it could mean relative to, maybe, the nine deals that you guys have done together in Japan over the past seven years? Ralph L. Schlosstein - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Look, I think the alliance has been something that's important to Mizuho's ability to serve their clients, and it is important to our ability to serve our clients. It is not something that is a big revenue producer or material too either them or too us in that regard. We do both believe that there is a pretty strong trend over the coming years, which is a multi-year trend, not a short-term phenomenon of outbound M&A activity by the large corporate clients in Japan. They generate a lot of cash flow. They've got strong market positions in their home market, but the home market is growing very slowly, if at all. So, there is a pretty broad phenomenon occurring there and we and Mizuho want to position ourselves as well as we can to follow those large Japanese corporates wherever they may be interested in investing. But if you look back historically, this has not been something that is materially economic to – economically to either of us. And unless I'm really surprised, I would expect that, that would not be any different going forward.

Okay, got it. That's helpful. Appreciate the explanation. And it doesn't sound like you guys are seeing or expecting much impact from the summer equity market volatility. So, that's good to hear. Are there any sectors on the margin where sellers and buyers expectations have been disrupted? I know that some sectors have been more volatile than others. Some areas in the market have recovered a lot more from the kind of summer lows than others as well. Ralph L. Schlosstein - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Well, you have to differentiate between macro factors and sector-specific factors. My comment's related to macro factors. I don't think any of the factors concerning growth, market volatility and so forth or the issues around those are producing hesitation. At the same time, there are always sector-specific factors, and the most vivid example is energy, and we all know what's going on in that sector in terms of the oil price and share prices and all of that. So there are always sector-specific issues. You're seeing enormous consolidation right now in healthcare. Some of which is driven by the changing regulation of the healthcare market. So nothing in the macro environment suggests that the M&A market as a whole is going to soften or weaken. Each sector, however, always operates as to its – on its own cycle.

Okay. Thanks. And with respect to the share repurchase with Mizuho transaction, does any of those shares count for the shares that you anticipate to reduce related to ISI? Or is that completely separate in terms of how you're thinking about you taking out those shares from that transaction? Robert B. Walsh - Senior Managing Director & Chief Financial Officer: Devon, we anticipate that the real effect of that repurchase will reduce the adjusted share count by 150,000, 200,000 shares, so I would count of that towards the ISI target.

Got it. Okay and just last one for me, with respect to other expenses, ticked up a little bit lumpy there. Not sure if that was the kind of the unusual item that you referenced in the prepared remarks or if there's anything else in the other expense line? Ralph L. Schlosstein - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: It's really a lumpy item and head count growth.

Got it. Okay, thanks very much.

Thank you. And our next question comes from the line of Ashley Serrao of Credit Suisse. Your line is now open. Ashley Neil Serrao - Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC (Broker): Good morning. Ralph L. Schlosstein - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Hi, Ashley. Robert B. Walsh - Senior Managing Director & Chief Financial Officer: Good morning. Ashley Neil Serrao - Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC (Broker): So, as you sit here today on record revenues, how are you thinking about the size of the advisory franchise, where do you see opportunities to add more talent? And then just an update on your latest thinking around the strategic importance of investment management given today's announcements would be appreciated. Ralph L. Schlosstein - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Your first question concerns what I – it didn't come through to us very clearly, sorry. Ashley Neil Serrao - Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC (Broker): Just how are you thinking about the size of the advisory franchise and where do you see opportunities to add more talent? Ralph L. Schlosstein - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yeah. Our point of view, as you can see, by looking at us and also just our comments this morning, is steady as she goes. We have continued to expand the firm on the advisory side at a very consistent rate, both in terms of people, which is the key to it, and also geographically, and by industrial sector. And we're going to continue to do that. And if you look at us over the last three years or five years or longer, and look at the rate at which we've been expanding, that's what we intend to keep doing. And we don't see any short to medium-term reasons why that type of…

Thank you. And our next question comes from Dan Paris of Goldman Sachs. Your line is now open. Daniel E. Paris - Goldman Sachs & Co.: Good morning. Ralph L. Schlosstein - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Good morning. Robert B. Walsh - Senior Managing Director & Chief Financial Officer: Hi Dan. Daniel E. Paris - Goldman Sachs & Co.: So, obviously, nice to see the recognition in the equities business and the II ranking this year. You saw a pretty good uptick link quarter. I just wanted to flush out how much of that you think is kind of seasonality of the business? I know you talk about potentially revenues in that business being back half loaded versus the just seeing more momentum on the client side? Ralph L. Schlosstein - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Well, the difficult thing about the third quarter is, we definitely saw more momentum on the client side. What's visible, obviously, is the II rankings, but we get a report card from most large institutional investors every quarter, and as a general matter, their view of how they view us has improved, generally, by two or three slots versus where we were, historically, let's say nine months or a year ago. The pickup in secondary activity in the third quarter was clearly driven by at least one thing and, hopefully, two things. The one thing it clearly was driven by was increased volatility and volume in the equity markets and, certainly, to a certain extent, we, like other equity firms, benefited from that. I think we got to wait for two or three more quarters of evidence before we can conclude that our – the regard – the increased regard with which were held by the institutional investors, the actual impact…

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Jim Mitchell with Buckingham Research. Your line is now open.

Good morning. Just a couple of quick follow-ups on the transaction, and I apologize if you mentioned this at the beginning, but did you mention the timing around the secondary at all? Ralph L. Schlosstein - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: We're going to go on the road show tomorrow and Wednesday. The hope is to price Wednesday or Thursday – after the market closes, or Thursday. Robert B. Walsh - Senior Managing Director & Chief Financial Officer: Yeah, we've launched this morning and we'll be taking calls this afternoon, as Ralph said, on the road the next two days. We anticipate pricing after the market close on Wednesday.

Okay, great. And if you look at the buyback, it's over 4% of your diluted share count. Do you think you can hold the line there, or should we expect to see some creep back up as you issue stock for bonuses and things like that, or do you think you can hold it at these levels? Ralph L. Schlosstein - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Our policy has been – which we've executed – that our goal is to purchase sufficient shares to offset the – any equity that we grant in the form of RSUs for year-end bonuses, any equity that we grant to new hires. And, over the life of the ISI transaction – or the first five years, to repurchase roughly half of the shares that were issued in connection with that. We've done all of that this year; obviously, this is the first year that ISI has been in the mix. So, absent acquisitions, which we have none on the drawing board at the moment, but absent that kind of activity, we wouldn't expect the share count to grow.

Okay, great. And just maybe one bigger picture question. I think Roger talked about how the number of deals really hasn't moved, despite volumes have picked up on the large transactions. Do you – based on your experience, would you – the smaller deals, should they follow in terms of activity levels – the big, large transactions create greater activity down the road? Is that how we should think about it, or is that not what you've seen in your experience? Roger C. Altman - Founder & Executive Chairman: I've learned that there are similarities in terms of the long-term cycles in the M&A market, but then each individual cycle has some, sometimes subtle differences. And the real answer is, and speaking for myself at least, I don't know. Theoretically, as the M&A market hums along, so to speak, the number of transactions should rise, but I really do not know if that will happen. And keep in mind, we're not talking about – I mean, Evercore is not talking about truly small transaction, right?

Right. Roger C. Altman - Founder & Executive Chairman: I mean, we are not in the really small transaction business. We're in the medium-sized and larger transaction business. So what affects us is the number of deals in that category, but – I'd be making it up if I said I know. I really don't know. The number of transactions was up 2% year-over-year for the nine months globally. So it's up, not down, but it's up marginally. And we will just have to see. Really don't know. Ralph L. Schlosstein - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Let me add just one thing on the share count, which I think is apparent to most people, but just to make sure everybody understands. The Mizuho warrants are already in our share count, to a certain extent. In effect, the difference between the strike price and the current market price is reflected in our adjusted pro forma share count. So as Bob indicated, the purchase that we're making here is a little bit higher than the current accounting treatment of the Mizuho warrants in our adjusted pro forma share count. And very importantly, almost every quarter, we sit here and talk about our share count going up and down because of the price of our shares during the quarter because it affects the difference between the strike price and the market value. And by eliminating the overhang of these warrants, we will eliminate that source of volatility in our share count. Is that correct? Roger C. Altman - Founder & Executive Chairman: Relating to the warrant. Ralph L. Schlosstein - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yes. Roger C. Altman - Founder & Executive Chairman: There'll be a nominal amount related to the RSUs, but hopefully not – we'll only talk about it if the share price moves a ton.

Right. Well, thanks for taking my questions.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Steven Chubak from Nomura Securities. Your line is now open.

Thank you, good morning. Robert B. Walsh - Senior Managing Director & Chief Financial Officer: Good morning, Steve. Ralph L. Schlosstein - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Good morning.

Just a quick question on the underwriting side, $32 million revenues for the first nine months. The third quarter was a bit light but that was pretty consistent with the industry pattern or where we saw pretty meaningful declines. The outlook commentary overall was pretty constructive to me, Roger. And I wanted to get a sense as to whether we should expect that you are currently on pace to meet the $40 million to $50 million target that you alluded to on the last earnings call for the full-year? Roger C. Altman - Founder & Executive Chairman: Yes.

Excellent. Okay, and then just one question on the investment management side, I appreciated the commentary you guys have given on the expense review that you're looking to pursue. And I just wanted to get a better sense as to what you see as the margin opportunity for that segment going forward? I know it's running at the high teens, low 20s for – on average for the last few quarters, but where do you think that could potentially go to? Ralph L. Schlosstein - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: I think its 20 – high teens to mid-20s is probably the normalized margin there. And it goes a little higher when you have a quarter as we just did, where you had a couple – little marks because we still do have some residual private equity positions, but there's not a lot of opportunity to squeeze more juice out of that lemon.

Understood. And one final one for me, just on the Mizuho transaction, I appreciate the color on the actual share count reduction that you guys are anticipating. And thinking about the other elements of the accretion benefit, which is the refinancing of the loan, can you give us any early indications as to where that pricing should roughly end up. Robert B. Walsh - Senior Managing Director & Chief Financial Officer: The loan with Mizuho – the new loan is LIBOR-based. So, you might think of it, currently, as about a 3% interest rate when you put their margin on top of it, that number will move around both as rates and other factors move. And then opportunistically, we'll look at sort of other financing. We've sought to refinance that debt for some time and this transaction enables that. But whether this is the right form of loan return financing, we'll address that in future quarters.

Understood. That's it for me. Thanks for taking my questions.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Joel Jeffrey of KBW. Your line is now open. Joel Jeffrey - Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, Inc.: Hey, good morning, guys. Ralph L. Schlosstein - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Hey, good morning. Robert B. Walsh - Senior Managing Director & Chief Financial Officer: Joel. Joel Jeffrey - Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, Inc.: Just to follow-up on Steve's last question, in terms of thinking about how you're looking at your capital structure, I mean, what was really the need to refinance this? Why not just eliminate this debt? Ralph L. Schlosstein - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Well, the need to refinance it came from our desire to repurchase an amount of shares equal to or slightly in excess of the current number of shares created by the Mizuho warrant in our adjusted pro forma share count. So it's really a desire to have a transaction that lowers interest expense and modestly lowers share count. And I have to say that we're not big fans of debt on these companies, but we – our trailing 12-month revenues are about $1.1 billion and to have a $120 million of debt on a company like that I don't think is an appalling situation. Joel Jeffrey - Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, Inc.: Great, thanks. That's all I had. Ralph L. Schlosstein - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Some would argue we should be more leveraged but we disagree with that.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Vincent Hung of Autonomous. Your line is now open.

Hi, good morning. How is it going? Robert B. Walsh - Senior Managing Director & Chief Financial Officer: Good morning, Vincent. Ralph L. Schlosstein - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Good morning.

Just on the equities business, so the thing is you've now been running equities business for nearly a year. I just wanted to see what you've done up there and how you view the structural outlook for the equities business and I'm referring to things like shrinking commission pools and the possible impact of (51:43) Ralph L. Schlosstein - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: The answer is, we're not smart enough to know the answer to that, sadly.

Okay. Ralph L. Schlosstein - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: I think that we do feel that through the combination of market share gain and the equities business that is stable or even hovering (52:15) a little bit that we can do well in that business. If you look at the data, there seems to be – have been a bottoming in the amount of – in the commission pool and a slight bounce. I have no idea whether that is a true bottoming and a little bit of a recovery or whether that's a blip on – or a somewhat long-term secular phenomenon. I do think though that, if you look back during the six or seven years ago, we were able to grow our advisory revenues in an environment where the pool of advisory fees was shrinking. And our hope and expectation is that in equities we have a similar experience.

Great. Thanks a lot.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Jeff Harte of Sandler O'Neill. Your line is now open. Jeffery Harte - Sandler O'Neill & Partners LP: Good morning, guys. Ralph L. Schlosstein - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Hi, Jeff. Robert B. Walsh - Senior Managing Director & Chief Financial Officer: Good morning. Roger C. Altman - Founder & Executive Chairman: Good morning Jeffery Harte - Sandler O'Neill & Partners LP: Just to make sure I'm clear, so there's a big slug of buyback coming from the Mizuho transaction. What should we be thinking about incremental share purchases after that? I mean, does that kind of mean you've done what you're going to do for a little while or does that have an impact? Ralph L. Schlosstein - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: We will be opportunistic in the latter part of the year. As you know, we were pretty aggressive in the first half, and continue to look to offset the dilution, particularly related to the ISI shares if the opportunities are there. Jeffery Harte - Sandler O'Neill & Partners LP: Okay. And thinking about kind of – I know the kind of targeted comp ratio, but is there a way we should be thinking kind of going forward about revenue growth versus comp growth? And I'm just kind of thinking in general operating leverage, I mean the revenue growth has been really strong for a number of years. Is there – how should we think about that revenue growth continuing to exceed comp expense growth? Ralph L. Schlosstein - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: I think we've said this a number of times. The operating leverage in this business, as a general matter, is pretty negligible in terms of adding SMDs and teams…

Thank you. There appears to be no questions at this time. I would now like to turn the floor over to Ralph Schlosstein for any closing comments. Ralph L. Schlosstein - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: I have nothing to add other than, we look forward to talking to you next quarter. Thank you.