Lazard (LAZ) Q4 Earnings Report Preview: What To Look For

Financial advisory firm Lazard (NYSE:LAZ) will be announcing earnings results this Thursday before the bell. Here’s what investors should know.

Lazard beat analysts’ revenue expectations by 1.5% last quarter, reporting revenues of $724.7 million, up 12.2% year on year. It was a very strong quarter for the company, with a beat of analysts’ EPS estimates and .

Is Lazard a buy or sell going into earnings? Read our full analysis here, it’s free for active Edge members.

This quarter, analysts are expecting Lazard’s revenue to be flat year on year at $814.7 million, slowing from the 6.8% increase it recorded in the same quarter last year. Adjusted earnings are expected to come in at $0.69 per share.

Analysts covering the company have generally reconfirmed their estimates over the last 30 days, suggesting they anticipate the business to stay the course heading into earnings. Lazard has only missed Wall Street’s revenue estimates once over the last two years, exceeding top-line expectations by 6.6% on average.

Looking at Lazard’s peers in the investment banking & brokerage segment, some have already reported their Q4 results, giving us a hint as to what we can expect. Jefferies delivered year-on-year revenue growth of 5.7%, beating analysts’ expectations by 3%, and Goldman Sachs reported a revenue decline of 3%, topping estimates by 0.5%. Jefferies traded down 5.6% following the results while Goldman Sachs was up 3.1%.

Read our full analysis of Jefferies’s results here and Goldman Sachs’s results here.

Investors in the investment banking & brokerage segment have had steady hands going into earnings, with share prices flat over the last month. Lazard is up 6.5% during the same time and is heading into earnings with an average analyst price target of $58.13 (compared to the current share price of $52.78).

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