Lazard
Lazard's revenue rose 1.5% to $3.2 billion in fiscal 2025. Its operating margin was 10.3%, down from 12.3% a year earlier. Free cash flow was $487 million, down 30.1%. It paid out $278 million in dividends and buybacks, 57% of free cash flow. The diluted share count rose 3.9%.
Operating margin is operating income as a share of revenue. Free cash flow is cash from operations minus capital spending. Return on capital is after-tax operating income as a share of the money invested in the business: debt plus equity, minus cash. Market cap is the last closing share price times the latest diluted share count, so it is approximate. P/E is the last close divided by diluted earnings per share over the last four quarters, or the latest fiscal year where the quarters aren't available; there is none when the company made a loss.
What Lazard does
Lazard, founded in 1848, is a global financial advisory and asset management firm with operations in North and South America, Europe, the Middle East, Asia and Australia. It advises companies and governments on mergers and acquisitions, capital markets and capital solutions, restructuring and liability management, geopolitics and other strategic matters. It also manages money for institutions and individuals.
It has two main segments. Financial Advisory earns fees for advice, and these fees are not long-term contracted revenue. The ten largest fee-paying clients made up approximately 17% of the segment's net revenue in 2025, and no client was more than 10%. Asset Management offers equity, fixed income, asset allocation and alternative investment strategies, plus private equity funds and wealth management, to corporations, public funds, endowments, labor unions and others. Its top ten clients held 24% of assets under management (AUM), the money it manages for clients.
About 82% of AUM at the end of 2025 was managed for institutional and intermediary clients. Lazard says that having several lines of business, regions and industries helps even out its revenue. It also has a Corporate segment. Financial Advisory had 216 managing directors and Asset Management had 124.
Its biggest risks, as it describes them
- Difficult market conditions that reduce deal volumes and the value of the assets it manages.
- Conflicts of interest that it handles badly, which could damage its reputation.
- Financial results that can differ widely from period to period, making steady growth hard.
- Hiring and keeping productive people, in a very competitive industry.
- Reliance on advisory fees that are not long-term contracts, and on restructuring work that depends on defaults and bankruptcies.
Charts show fiscal years, from the 10-K filings.
Revenue and margins
Net income and earnings per share
From fiscal 2016 to 2025, earnings per share fell 3.2% a year and net income 5.3% a year, while buybacks cut the share count by 20%.
Returns on capital
Cash flow
Payouts and share count
Valuation
Two ways to value Lazard yourself, both starting from its filings: a discounted cash flow model and the price-to-earnings method.
Discounted cash flow (DCF)
A discounted cash flow (DCF) model values a business as the cash it may generate in future, discounted back to today. The starting figures come from Lazard's 10-K (or, for net cash and shares, its latest 10-Q) and the assumptions are yours: start from one of three example scenarios, then change any figure to see what it implies for a share, and how that compares with the last share price.
Value per share on three example scenarios, from Lazard's fiscal 2025 free cash flow of $487M, net cash of −$219M at December 31, 2025 and 106 million diluted shares, from its filings. The scenarios are fitted to Lazard: the base scenario's growth in years 1 to 5 is its revenue growth over the last 3 years, 3.7% a year; the cautious and optimistic ones are lower and higher, and growth in years 6 to 10 is halfway to the long-run rate. The base scenario's discount rate is 11%: 9% for a business of moderate risk (Diversified Capital Markets), plus 1 point as a smaller company, worth $4.0B, plus 1 point for unsteady results (a loss in fiscal 2023); the cautious and optimistic ones use a point more and a point less. Select one to load it into the calculator. These are the model's arithmetic on those assumptions, not a forecast or a price target.
- Last close, October 26, 2026
- $37.70
- Value on these assumptions, against the last close
- —
- Cash flows in years 1 to 10, valued today
- —
- Everything after year 10, valued today
- —
- Plus net cash
- —
- Share of value from after year 10
How the value changes with two assumptions
Price-to-earnings (P/E) method
Another common way to value a company is to multiply its earnings per share by a price-to-earnings (P/E) multiple: the number of years of today's earnings an investor pays for a share. A higher multiple usually means investors expect earnings to grow. Choose a multiple, for example from similar companies, to see the value it gives.
Value per share on three example scenarios, from Lazard's earnings per share of $1.65 (over the last four quarters). Each grows earnings for a year at the cash flow scenarios' rates and applies a multiple to next year's earnings: 22.8×, the middle of Lazard's own P/E today, its peers' median and its sector's median (Lazard's own P/E today) for the base scenario, 20% less and more for the cautious and optimistic ones. The price is brought back a year at 12%, 11% and 10%. Select one to load it into the calculator. These are the model's arithmetic on those assumptions, not a forecast or a price target.
- Last close, October 26, 2026
- $37.70
- Value at this multiple, against the last close
- —
- Lazard's P/E at the last close
- 22.8×
| Company | Last close | Earnings per share | P/E today |
|---|---|---|---|
| MSCIMSCI | $617.67 | $18.90 | 32.7× |
| BGC GroupBGC | $11.79 | $0.41 | 28.8× |
| LazardLAZ | $37.70 | $1.65 | 22.8× |
| PrimericaPRI | $276.79 | $24.89 | 11.1× |
Balance sheet
| Fiscal year end | FY21 | FY22 | FY23 | FY24 | FY25 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cash and short-term investments | 1,465 | 1,235 | 971 | 1,308 | 1,469 |
| Debt incl. finance leases | 1,685 | 1,688 | 1,690 | 1,687 | 1,688 |
| Net debt (negative means net cash) | 220 | 453 | 719 | 379 | 219 |
| Net debt to EBITDA | 0.3x | 0.8x | — | 0.9x | 0.6x |
| Debt to equity | 1.7x | 3.0x | 4.0x | 2.6x | 1.9x |
| Interest coverage | 9.0x | 6.3x | −1.0x | 4.4x | 3.8x |
| Current ratio | — | — | — | — | — |
| Quick ratio | — | — | — | — | — |
Insider trades
Over the 12 months between October 27, 2025 and October 26, 2026, no insider bought Lazard shares on the open market, and 2 insiders sold $8.7 million, all of it under trading plans set up in advance.
| Date | Insider | Trade | Shares | Price | Value | Filing |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aug 25, 2026 | Peter Richard OrszagCEO & Chairman, Director | Sold plan | 125,000 | $43.52 | $5.4 million | Form 4 |
| Mar 19, 2026 | Christopher HogbinCEO Asset Management | Sold plan | 3,944 | $39.37 | $155,275 | Form 4 |
| Mar 18, 2026 | Christopher HogbinCEO Asset Management | Sold plan | 7,885 | $40.37 | $318,317 | Form 4 |
| Mar 17, 2026 | Peter Richard OrszagCEO & Chairman, Director | Sold plan | 69,170 | $40.76 | $2.8 million | Form 4 |
Piotroski F-score
The F-score counts how many of nine simple tests of profitability, funding and efficiency a company passed in a year (Piotroski, 2000). The more tests passed, the stronger the year: 8 or 9 is strong, 0 to 2 weak. Companies that report no gross profit are scored on the other eight.
| Test | FY23 | FY24 | FY25 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Net income is positive | Fail | Pass | Pass |
| Cash from operations is positive | Pass | Pass | Pass |
| Return on assets rose | Fail | Pass | Fail |
| Cash from operations exceeds net income | Pass | Pass | Pass |
| Debt fell relative to assets | Fail | Fail | Pass |
| Current ratio rose | — | — | — |
| Share count didn't rise | Pass | Fail | Fail |
| Gross margin rose | — | — | — |
| Revenue rose relative to assets | Pass | Pass | Fail |
| F-score | — | — | — |
| Accruals ratio | −4.6% | −9.8% | −5.8% |
Compare
Put Lazard side by side with any other company we cover: revenue, growth, margins, cash flow and returns, with ten years of charts.
Similar companies
| Company | Year | Revenue growth | Operating margin | Free cash flow margin | Return on capital | Net debt to EBITDA | F-score | Compare |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lazard | FY25 | 1.5% | 10.3% | 15.3% | 22.9% | 0.6x | — | |
| MSCI | FY25 | 9.8% | 54.7% | 49.4% | 44.5% | 3.3x | 7 | Compare |
| Primerica | FY25 | 6.6% | — | — | 34.5% | −0.2x | — | Compare |
| Ryan Specialty | FY25 | 21.3% | 16.2% | 21.0% | 8.7% | 4.1x | — | Compare |
| BGC Group | FY25 | 30.0% | — | 12.7% | 13.2% | 1.7x | — | Compare |
10 years of figures
| Fiscal year | FY16 | FY17 | FY18 | FY19 | FY20 | FY21 | FY22 | FY23 | FY24 | FY25 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Income statement | ||||||||||
| Revenue | 2,384 | 2,698 | 2,885 | 2,667 | 2,647 | 3,274 | 2,855 | 2,593 | 3,140 | 3,186 |
| Revenue growth | −0.9% | 13.2% | 6.9% | −7.5% | −0.8% | 23.7% | −12.8% | −9.2% | 21.1% | 1.5% |
| Gross profit | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Research and development | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Operating income | 518 | 825 | 681 | 393 | 502 | 724 | 517 | −80 | 386 | 328 |
| Net income | 388 | 254 | 527 | 286 | 402 | 528 | 358 | −76 | 280 | 237 |
| Diluted EPS (US$) | 2.92 | 1.91 | 4.06 | 2.44 | 3.54 | 4.63 | 3.51 | −0.90 | 2.68 | 2.17 |
| Diluted shares (millions) | 133 | 132 | 130 | 116 | 114 | 114 | 101 | 89 | 102 | 106 |
| Cash flow | ||||||||||
| Cash from operations | 633 | 1,029 | 699 | 678 | 576 | 866 | 834 | 165 | 743 | 519 |
| Capital expenditure | 39 | 28 | 50 | 43 | 64 | 40 | 50 | 28 | 46 | 32 |
| Free cash flow | 594 | 1,001 | 649 | 635 | 512 | 826 | 784 | 136 | 697 | 487 |
| Dividends paid | 336 | 341 | 360 | 255 | 197 | 196 | 182 | 173 | 179 | 187 |
| Share buybacks | 300 | 307 | 553 | 495 | 95 | 406 | 692 | 102 | 60 | 91 |
| Acquisitions | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 10 | 0 | 0 |
| Stock-based compensation | 262 | 273 | 268 | 253 | 218 | 234 | 241 | 251 | 278 | 360 |
| Balance sheet at fiscal year end | ||||||||||
| Cash and short-term investments | 1,159 | 1,484 | 1,246 | 1,232 | 1,390 | 1,465 | 1,235 | 971 | 1,308 | 1,469 |
| Debt incl. finance leases | 1,189 | 1,190 | 1,434 | 1,680 | 1,683 | 1,685 | 1,688 | 1,690 | 1,687 | 1,688 |
| Total assets | 4,556 | 4,929 | 4,997 | 5,640 | 5,972 | 7,147 | 5,853 | 4,636 | 4,794 | 4,941 |
| Total liabilities | 3,263 | 3,670 | 4,027 | 4,958 | 4,972 | 5,494 | 4,594 | 4,066 | 4,029 | 3,952 |
| Shareholders' equity | 1,236 | 1,200 | 917 | 610 | 912 | 975 | 556 | 424 | 636 | 874 |
| Margins and ratios | ||||||||||
| Gross margin | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Operating margin | 21.7% | 30.6% | 23.6% | 14.7% | 19.0% | 22.1% | 18.1% | −3.1% | 12.3% | 10.3% |
| Net margin | 16.3% | 9.4% | 18.3% | 10.7% | 15.2% | 16.1% | 12.5% | −2.9% | 8.9% | 7.4% |
| Free cash flow margin | 24.9% | 37.1% | 22.5% | 23.8% | 19.3% | 25.2% | 27.5% | 5.3% | 22.2% | 15.3% |
| Return on capital | 30.8% | 36.1% | 50.0% | 25.8% | 33.2% | 41.6% | 31.6% | −5.4% | 25.3% | 22.9% |
| Return on equity | 30.4% | 20.8% | 49.8% | 37.5% | 52.9% | 56.0% | 46.7% | −15.4% | 52.8% | 31.4% |
| Return on assets | 8.6% | 5.3% | 10.6% | 5.4% | 6.9% | 8.1% | 5.5% | −1.4% | 5.9% | 4.9% |
| Net debt to EBITDA | 0.1x | −0.3x | 0.3x | 1.1x | 0.6x | 0.3x | 0.8x | — | 0.9x | 0.6x |