Evercore Inc. (NYSE: EVR) — The Biggest Boutique, Priced for the Boom to Keep Booming

Independent equity research · Report date: 2026-07-10 · Sector: Financials — Capital Markets / Independent Investment-Banking Advisory · Fiscal year ends December 31. Figures reconcile to the FY2025 Form 10-K (filed 2026-02-20), the Q4-FY2025 and Q1-FY2026 earnings calls, the FY2025 proxy, and public SEC filings unless otherwise noted. Price references use the 2026-07-10 close of ~$334.75.

⚡ Claude’s Take

This is the author’s own subjective opinion and general information only — not investment advice. The detailed analysis that follows carries no recommendation and no price target; this opening block is the single place a view is expressed.

Verdict: HOLD — great franchise, wrong point in the cycle to pay up. Trim into strength; accumulate only on a real de-rate toward ~$230–275. Not a short. Conviction: medium. Tag: “The biggest boutique, priced for the boom to keep booming.”

Evercore is the largest independent investment bank in the world by advisory revenue (~$3.27B in FY2025, ahead of Houlihan Lokey, Centerview, Lazard, PJT and Moelis), a genuine beneficiary of the multi-year migration of M&A fees from the bulge bracket to the conflict-free boutiques, run by an aligned, founder-caliber team (Weinberg/Altman), on a net-cash balance sheet, compounding common equity at ~30% ROE with unusually honest accounting (adjusted EPS $14.56 sits just 3.6% above GAAP $14.05 — no non-GAAP games here). It just printed a record FY2025 (net revenue $3.86B, +29%; adjusted EPS $14.56, +55%) and a record Q1’26. This is a high-quality business, and I don’t dispute the quality.

My caution is entirely about price versus where we sit in the cycle. Advisory is the most cyclical fee business in financials — EVR’s own revenue swung −26% peak-to-trough in 2021→2023 — and FY2025/Q1’26 earnings sit at or near a cyclical high, not a trough. Yet the stock trades ~19–23x earnings and ~3.4x revenue (P/S in the ~82nd percentile of its own decade, P/B in the ~94th — its richest-ever), while management itself warned that the record Q1’26 was flattered by deals slipping out of Q4’25 and pulled forward from Q2’26, guiding Q2 back down toward last year’s $839M. That is the tell: you are being asked to pay a full-to-rich multiple on earnings the company is signaling are running hot. The classic advisory trap is paying an above-average multiple on above-average (peak) earnings — a double dose of optimism that reverses hard if the deal calendar cools. Versus HLI — more diversified, restructuring-hedged, and more de-rated — EVR is the higher-beta, less-hedged way to own the same theme, at a less-forgiving price. Bullish trigger: two-plus quarters of advisory growth excluding the Q1’26 pull-forward, confirming a multi-year upcycle rather than a peak. Bearish trigger: a YoY advisory decline in 2H’26 plus a stalling comp-ratio improvement, revealing FY25/Q1’26 as the top. Insiders offer no help — one $581K director buy against routine diversification selling; neutral.

📈 Stock Price Action — Five-Year Event Map

Factual price history — no recommendation, no price target. Prices are nominal closes from 5-year daily price data; the attributed cause of each move is Interpretation, the move itself is Fact.

Arc. Over the trailing ~60 months EVR round-tripped from a 2022 bear-market low of ~$75 (intraday $73.96, 2022-09-27) up more than 5x to an all-time high of ~$381 close / ~$387 intraday (mid-January 2026), and now trades at ~$334.75 (2026-07-10), about 12% below that high, inside a 52-week range of roughly $265 → $387. The path was violently non-linear — including a ~40%+ tariff-driven drawdown in spring 2025 (intraday $161.50 on 2025-04-08) that fully reversed within six months — a compressed replay of the entire advisory cycle: 2022 bust, 2022–24 recovery, 2025 shock, 2025–26 blow-off, 2026 pullback.

Cycle narrative (drivers = Interpretation unless a dated print):

1. H2’21→Sep’22 (~−45%): the fastest Fed hiking cycle in decades shut the M&A/financing window; advisory revenue is highly rate- and confidence-sensitive, and EVR de-rated with the sector to a ~$75 trough.
2. Oct’22→Dec’23 (~+120%): as rate expectations peaked and a soft landing came into view, the stock recovered before M&A did — restructuring/liability-management revenue carried the franchise while deal volumes stayed depressed.
3. Jan’24→Nov’24 (~+85%): the M&A recovery began in earnest with record quarters; the November 2024 U.S. election added a deregulation bid, pushing EVR to ~$310.
4. Jan’25→Apr’25 (~−44% peak-to-trough): the April 2025 tariff shock and ensuing volatility hammered cyclicals; EVR fell to an intraday $161.50 (2025-04-08) on fears deals would be delayed — management later confirmed some Q1’25 transactions slipped on that volatility.
5. Apr’25→Sep’25 (~+105%): the fastest leg up — large-cap strategic M&A snapped back, financing reopened, and record Q2 (2025-07-30) and Q3 (2025-10-29) prints drove the stock to ~$335.
6. Sep’25→Oct’25 (~−13%): a software/AI-led market wobble, an “AI-decompression” narrative (that AI could erode advisory fees), and the October 2025 government shutdown clipped the stock to ~$290.
7. Oct’25→Jan’26 (~+31% to an ATH): record FY25 results (net revenue ~$3.86B, +29%) reported 2026-02-04, plus a visible large-cap backlog, carried EVR to its ~$381 all-time high in mid-January 2026.
8. Jan’26→Jul’26 (~−12%): despite a record Q1’26 (2026-04-29), the CFO’s explicit “don’t extrapolate” / softer-Q2 guidance, the lingering AI debate, and “more mixed” macro pulled the stock back to ~$335. Recent analyst actions bracket the debate: UBS Neutral, PT $330→$350 (2026-07-08); KBW Outperform, PT $375→$390 (2026-07-10).

1. Executive Summary

Evercore (founded 1995, public since 2006) is the world’s largest independent, advice-led investment bank — no commercial lending, no principal trading against clients, no balance-sheet conflicts. It operates two segments, but the split is lopsided: Investment Banking & Equities (~98% of revenue) — dominated by success-fee M&A/strategic advisory, plus restructuring & liability management, private capital advisory, activism defense, a small ECM/underwriting business, and the #1-ranked independent Evercore ISI research/equities platform — and Investment Management (~2%), a wealth-management/trust unit ($15.5B AUM) that is immaterial to the thesis. Advisory fees alone are ~85% of revenue; this is the purest large-cap advisory play in the public set and, by design, far less hedged than Houlihan Lokey.

FY2025 was a fresh record: net revenue $3,855.8M (+29%), driven by advisory fees of $3,267.1M (+34%); GAAP diluted EPS $14.05, adjusted diluted EPS $14.56 (+55%); adjusted operating margin 21.7%; common-equity ROE ~30% on an asset-light, net-cash (~$838M) balance sheet. The accounting is unusually clean for an Up-C structure — the GAAP-to-adjusted bridge is a modest 3.6%, and management does not hide anything material behind non-GAAP. The structural governor is compensation: 64.9% of revenue (GAAP) goes to the bankers before shareholders see a dollar — the source of both the stability of the model and the ceiling on its returns.

The moat is real but narrow — a firm-brand reputational intangible for conflict-free advice on the biggest, most complex mandates, reinforced by a mild scale-of-platform effect (EVR is the largest independent and staffs deals sub-scale boutiques cannot). But there are no switching costs, no network effects, and no cost advantage: clients hire deal-by-deal, and the productive assets — the bankers — walk out nightly and are bid to market. The ~30% ROE looks extraordinary only because those “assets” are expensed, not capitalized. Growth is genuine, organic and multi-sourced (171→182 IB Senior Managing Directors, advisory-per-SMD up ~13%, revenue-per-employee up ~20%, share gains at the large/complex end), riding a durable secular tailwind (elite-boutique US M&A fee share rose from <15% in 2018 to >27% by 2024). The Robey Warshaw acquisition (closed Oct-2025) is an acqui-hire of an elite UK boutique, run mostly through comp, not an empire-building deal.

The setup is a high-quality, high-cyclicality franchise printing a record near a cyclical peak, priced full-to-rich. At ~$335 the stock trades ~19–23x earnings, ~3.4x revenue (P/S in the ~82nd percentile of its own decade; P/B ~94th — richest-ever), with management explicitly warning that Q1’26’s record was flattered by pull-forward and that Q2 steps down. The core debate — developed as embedded expectations below, with no recommendation and no price target — is whether you are buying a multi-year upcycle in early innings or paying an above-average multiple on above-average (peak) earnings just as comp-ratio operating leverage flattens.

2. Business Overview

Evercore sells advice, not balance sheet. It carries none of the conflicts a bulge-bracket bank does when it lends to, trades against, and researches the same companies it advises — the entire pitch to a board or special committee is independence. At year-end 2025 it employed roughly 2,570 people, including 210 Senior Managing Directors (171 in Investment Banking, 39 in Equities), across offices in the US, UK, and a dozen other countries. It reports two segments, but the economics are concentrated in one.

Investment Banking & Equities — ~98% of revenue (FY25 net revenue $3,767.7M, +30%; pre-tax income $770.9M, ~20.5% margin). The revenue lines (FY2025 10-K MD&A):

Advisory is the whole story — ~85% of total revenue; advisory + underwriting ~89–91% (excluding Other Revenue). Within advisory, EVR bundles M&A, restructuring & liability management, capital-markets advisory, private-capital/GP-led secondaries, and shareholder-defense — but does not separately disclose restructuring revenue, so its countercyclical hedge cannot be precisely sized (INTERPRETATION: it is materially thinner than HLI’s dedicated ~20% restructuring franchise). The Equities/ISI platform — #1-ranked independent research (Extel All-America, four years running), 1,200+ institutional clients, agency-only trading — is structurally low-margin and MiFID-pressured; it is best read as a relationship/corporate-access engine that feeds the advisory franchise, not a profit center in its own right.

Investment Management — ~2% of revenue ($88.2M net, $22.9M pre-tax): Evercore Wealth Management ($15.5B AUM, record), Evercore Trust, and an equity-method interest in Atalanta Sosnoff. Real but immaterial to the thesis; EVR is not a diversified asset-gatherer like Lazard.

Fee model and productivity. Revenue is earned under individually negotiated engagement letters dominated by success-based completion fees, so a quarter turns on the timing of closings — the source of EVR’s quarter-to-quarter lumpiness and the auditor’s designated critical audit matter (year-end judgment on whether a deal will close). Productivity is improving, not just headcount: advisory fees per IB SMD ≈ $19.1M (FY25) vs ~$16.9M (FY24), +13%; net revenue per employee ≈ $1.50M vs $1.25M, +20%; 806 fee-events, of which 529 were ≥$1M (up from 457) — the franchise is deepening at the large, complex end where independence and scale matter most. Geographically, ~24% of revenue is non-US (US ~$2,885.7M, ~74%), the balance mostly UK, with Germany, Hong Kong, Singapore, DIFC/Dubai, Saudi Arabia, Canada and Brazil footprints.

Verdict. A capital-light, advice-only bank that is ~90% levered to episodic, success-fee M&A and strategic advisory — the purest and largest large-cap independent advisory play publicly available, and by design the least diversified/hedged of the elite boutiques. Revenue quality is high (repeat institutional clients, a conflict-free brand, rising per-head productivity) but the business is intensely cyclical and closing-timing-dependent, with earnings volatility absorbed by the flexible compensation model.

3. Industry Dynamics

The secular share shift is real and multi-year. A firm that only advises — no lending relationship to protect, no trading desk to feed, no research to compromise — can give conflict-free counsel, and boards and creditors increasingly demand exactly that on the decisions that matter most. The data confirm the migration: the elite-boutique cohort’s share of US M&A advisory fees rose from under 15% in 2018 to over 27% by 2024 (LSEG data, per peer research). This is a supply-side migration of the fee pool out of the bulge brackets, not merely a cyclical bounce — the tailwind under EVR’s entire franchise, and EVR is the single largest beneficiary at ~$3.27B advisory in FY25, ahead of HLI (~$2.4B), Centerview (~$2.1B), Lazard FA (~$1.8B), PJT (~$1.7B), and Moelis (~$1.5B).

Cyclicality — and where we are. Advisory is the most cyclical fee business in financials, and EVR’s own record proves it: net revenue ran $3,289M (FY21 peak) → $2,762M (FY22) → $2,426M (FY23 trough, −26% from peak) → $2,980M (FY24) → $3,856M (FY25 record). Mid-2026 is a rebounding M&A upcycle in relatively early innings: management cites industry announced M&A up ~49% in 2025 to ~$4.5T, with H2’25 volumes ~45% above H1 and >$5B “mega” deals at an all-time high, supported by ~$1.3–2.6T of private-equity dry powder and a large aged-sponsor backlog that must eventually clear. With a ~1.7 beta, EVR is a high-torque way to play that cycle in both directions. The framing that matters most for valuation: FY25/Q1’26 earnings sit at or near a cyclical high, not a trough — the opposite of a countercyclical setup — and management has explicitly flagged that Q1’26 borrowed from adjacent quarters.

Competitive intensity is a talent war, not a capital war. Competition splits into (1) bulge brackets (Goldman, Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan, BofA, Citi, Barclays, UBS, Deutsche) and (2) independents (Centerview, Houlihan Lokey, Lazard, Moelis, Perella Weinberg, PJT, Rothschild). Because the business is capital-light with ~30% ROE, the binding constraint and the mean-reversion mechanism are the same thing — compensation. High returns attract entry — star-MD defections, new-boutique formation (Centerview, PJT, PWP, Ducera all sprang from exactly this), bulge-bracket rebuilds — and the resulting bidding war keeps comp ratios pinned at ~60–65% of revenue, capping the equity holder’s take. Management confirms the market has “heated up a lot” and is “more expensive” than two or three years ago.

Marathon capital-cycle read. There is no physical capital cycle here, but a talent cycle that behaves the same way. Barriers to entry are low at the single-MD/boutique level (a rainmaker can hang a shingle) but high at the scaled-platform level — EVR’s sector breadth, global deal-flow, brand, SMD bench, and ISI research are genuinely hard to replicate. Regulation is light-touch (broker-dealer/FINRA/FCA), so there is no capital-rules moat and no rate/reimbursement distortion of the cycle; the only “regulatory” swing factor is antitrust/deal-approval intensity, which affects timing more than the fee pool.

Verdict — a structurally attractive industry, with a labor-cost caveat. Genuine multi-year secular share gain, capital-light economics, and high ROE, offset by intense competition, extreme M&A-cycle sensitivity, and a cost structure in which labor captures ~65% of every incremental dollar. A good industry — better for the scaled incumbents (EVR, HLI, Centerview) than for sub-scale entrants — but not a fortress industry, and one whose returns are structurally shared with the talent.

4. Competitive Position & Moat

Pressure-testing honestly in Greenwald’s taxonomy, EVR has no structural switching costs (clients hire deal-by-deal, near-zero lock-in), no network effects, and no cost advantage (the cost base is the talent, bid to market). What remains is a reputational intangible at the firm-brand level — the “Evercore” name for independent, unconflicted advice on the largest, most scrutiny-heavy deals wins the next mandate, and that reputation is self-reinforcing — layered with a mild reputation-plus-scale effect: EVR is the largest independent, so it can credibly staff the biggest, most complex special-committee and cross-border assignments that sub-scale boutiques cannot. The 529 fees ≥$1M and the Robey Warshaw tuck-in (an elite UK mega-cap boutique that has advised on 7 of the 10 largest UK deals in history) evidence this end of the franchise.

But this is a strong franchise renting talent, not a wide moat. The productive assets walk out nightly; the ~65% comp ratio is the toll they extract; and the ~30% ROE looks extraordinary only because the bankers are expensed rather than capitalized. Versus HLI specifically, EVR is more cyclical and less diversified — HLI’s built-in restructuring hedge produced revenue growth in 9 of 10 public years, whereas EVR’s near-pure-advisory book swung −26% peak-to-trough. The peer map:

Greenwald share test. EVR passes in the way that matters: durable and rising share — the largest independent, year after year, as the cohort’s US fee share climbed from <15% to >27%. Returns confirm quality (~30% common-equity ROE, high per-head productivity). But the share is won and re-won mandate-by-mandate, not locked in.

Verdict — a narrow-to-moderate, durable-but-not-wide moat. The genuine, financially-visible edge is a top-tier independence/reputation brand plus scale-of-platform that wins and compounds the largest advisory mandates and retains talent better than any single rainmaker could carry away. That is real and defensible. But it is a people business with no lock-in, high cyclicality, and returns capped by labor’s bargaining power — less cycle-resilient than HLI, with a wider large-cap brand. If the brand and platform vanished, the 30% ROE would deteriorate to whatever a collection of individual bankers could earn — which is precisely why the ~65% comp ratio exists: it is the market clearing price for keeping the “moat” from walking out the door.

5. Growth History and Forward Opportunities

The record — cyclical, but genuinely compounding across cycles:

Growth is multi-sourced and organic-led: (1) SMD headcount — IB SMDs grew to 171 at YE2025 (144→171, +19% YoY) via ~18–19 external hires (including 5 from Robey Warshaw) plus 11 internal promotions, rising to 182 after a January-2026 promote class, with “more than 45 ramping”; the SMD base is ~50% larger than at YE2021; (2) productivity — advisory-per-SMD +13%, revenue-per-employee +20%, so it is not purely roster inflation; (3) share gains — largest independent, deepening at the large/complex end (529 fees ≥$1M vs 457); and (4) new verticals — Private Capital Advisory / Private Funds Group (GP-led secondaries and continuation funds, a record year advising ~half of industry secondary volumes), liability management & restructuring, activism & shareholder defense, real-estate strategic advisory, and ECM/private-capital-markets. Geographic expansion (first offices in Italy, the Nordics, Saudi Arabia; the Robey Warshaw UK franchise) extends the non-US ~24% base.

Non-M&A is now a real second leg. Management states non-M&A revenue reached ~45–50% of the TTM mix in mid-2025 — private capital advisory, restructuring/liability management, ECM, and the ISI equities platform — which modestly de-risks the pure-M&A cyclicality even without a separately-disclosed restructuring segment.

The quality debate. Growth is high-quality in that it is organic, capital-light, secular-tailwind-backed, productivity-driven, and share-taking. It is lower-quality in that it is highly cyclical and episodic (success-fee dependent, closing-timing-lumpy, −26% peak-to-trough capability demonstrated), the incremental economics accrue heavily to labor (~65% comp), and FY25’s +29% comes off a cyclical upswing — extrapolating it risks anchoring to a near-peak. Management’s own Q1’26 disclosure — that the record quarter borrowed from both Q4’25 and Q2’26 — is the clearest warning against straight-lining.

Verdict — high-quality franchise growth on a real secular tailwind, delivered through a highly cyclical, labor-share-capped model. Genuine share gains and rising productivity, not a smooth compounder. The forward opportunity set (private capital advisory, restructuring optionality, non-US expansion, an early-innings M&A upcycle) is real; the caveat is that FY25 is a record printed near a cyclical high, so the growth is durable across cycles but decidedly not linear within them.

6. Financial Quality

The record year is real, and cyclical. FY2025 net revenue was $3,855.8M (+29%), driven almost entirely by advisory fees of $3,267.1M (+34%). GAAP net income to common was $591.9M, diluted EPS $14.05 (basic $15.29); adjusted diluted EPS $14.56 (+55%). TTM diluted EPS is ~$17.62 , reflecting the front-loaded Q1’26 — i.e., the trailing tape is capturing a cyclical peak, and the durability of that run-rate, not the quality of the numbers, is the central question.

The Up-C adjusted-EPS gap is small — a point in Evercore’s favor. Unlike many Up-C structures, EVR’s GAAP→adjusted bridge is modest and legitimate: adjusted diluted EPS of $14.56 is only 3.6% above GAAP $14.05 (FY24: $9.42 vs $9.08). The two adjustments are (1) the assumed exchange of Evercore LP units into Class A shares — which lifts both adjusted net income (to $646.3M) and the diluted share count (~44,951K adjusted vs 42,131K GAAP) roughly proportionally, so it nets to little per share — and (2) small, genuine add-backs ($7.0M Robey acquisition comp, $3.7M intangible amortization). This is not a company hiding a loss behind non-GAAP; GAAP EPS is the honest number here — a favorable contrast with many peers and with the memory-flagged Up-C/SBC games elsewhere in the coverage set.

Compensation is the structural governor. Employee compensation was $2,500.8M = 64.9% of net revenue (GAAP) / 64.2% adjusted, improved from 66.3% / 65.7% in FY24 — genuine ~140bp operating leverage as revenue scaled, but the model caps margin by construction. GAAP pre-tax operating margin was 20.5%, adjusted 21.7%. Non-comp costs of $565.0M held at 14.7% of revenue (adjusted 14.2%) despite the office buildout and Robey integration. High-ROE, yes — but 64–66 cents of every revenue dollar is paid to the bankers before the shareholder participates, and management guides that further comp-ratio improvement in 2026 will be “meaningfully more modest,” with sub-60% “not a quick return.”

Decompose the SBC headline before drawing dilution conclusions. The cash-flow add-back “Equity-Based and Other Deferred Compensation” of $675.1M (17.5% of revenue) is not all stock. Per the comp footnote it splits into RSU service-based comp ~$355.0M, a deferred-cash comp program ~$151.7M, other deferred cash ~$14.0M, the Robey award ~$6.1M, termination acceleration ~$9.3M, plus LP/Class K–P unit amortization and dividend equivalents. True equity-dilutive comp is ~$500M (~13% of revenue); ~$166M is deferred cash — a real liability but non-dilutive. Elevated, but the raw “17.5% SBC” figure conflates two different things and overstates dilution.

Quality-of-earnings flag: reported FCF overstates distributable cash. CFO was $1,256.5M against capex of just $74.0M, for headline FCF of $1,182.5M — 2.0x net income. But that ratio is inflated by the $675M non-cash comp add-back and a +$176.9M swing in accrued compensation (a timing accrual on the $1,381.3M deferred-comp liability). Because Evercore must then spend buyback cash to neutralize the equity comp the add-back created, the $1.18B FCF is not freely distributable; adjusted net income of ~$646.3M is the cleaner owner-earnings proxy. The asset-light D&A of $32.6M and near-zero tangible capital confirm the underlying quality — the caveat is purely that FCF ≠ owner cash for this comp model.

ROE is elite — and understated by aggregators. On average common equity (~$1,869.6M) FY25 ROE is ~31.7% (~29% on ending equity). The “25.1%” from third-party feeds reconciles to a return on total capital (equity + ~$481M average debt), not common ROE — corrected here. Either way, EVR compounds equity at a genuinely high rate because it holds almost none.

Balance sheet — a fortress, correctly characterized. Cash of $1,426.0M plus a $1,580.6M investment-securities/CD book (AFS Treasuries/CDs and an ETF portfolio held as an economic hedge against the deferred-cash-comp program — not equity stakes; equity-method investments are only $16.9M). Funded debt is $588.2M, entirely private-placement senior notes (Series C–L, 1.97%–5.58% coupons, laddered 2026–2033) — there are no finance/capital leases (the ~$567M is operating lease liabilities for offices). Net cash (cash less notes) is ~$838M. Broker-dealer Evercore Group L.L.C. holds $373.1M of regulatory net capital against a $250K minimum. Book value per share is $52.74 ($45.97 tangible, after $230.8M of Robey goodwill). One QoE watch item: the auditor’s critical audit matter is success-fee revenue-recognition timing — an inherent (if well-controlled) source of quarter-to-quarter noise.

Verdict — do economics improve with scale? Yes, modestly, and cleanly. Economics are excellent, the accounting is conservative, and the adjusted numbers are honest. Deduct for (a) a large forward comp overhang (~$860M of already-committed unrecognized RSU/K–P/deferred-cash comp) and (b) reported FCF that reads richer than the truly distributable figure. The operating leverage is real but structurally capped by the comp ratio; the balance sheet is a genuine differentiator that lets EVR keep investing (and buying back stock) through downturns.

7. Capital Allocation

The buyback is mostly a dilution offset, not share shrinkage. EVR spent $661.8M on repurchases in FY25, yet the basic weighted share count still rose from 38,365K to 38,712K (+0.9%) and diluted from 41,646K to 42,131K (+1.2%). Decomposed, the $661.8M is ~$271M (955K shares @ ~$284) of net-settlement tax-withholding on vesting RSUs — not a true buyback — and only ~$389M (1,443K @ ~$270) of genuine open-market repurchase. So EVR ran ~$389M of real buyback plus ~$271M of withholding and still could not hold the count flat. The five-year picture is better — basic count fell 40.75M → 38.71M (−5%) on ~$2.78B cumulative repurchases (2021 $730M, 2022 $550M, 2023 $392M, 2024 $450.5M, 2025 $661.8M) — but this is fundamentally a treadmill: cash out the door largely to stand still against equity comp.

A procyclical tilt. The largest program ($661.8M) landed in the peak year at ~$270 average, while the trough year (2023) saw the smallest ($392M). The 2022 $550M into a falling tape was creditable counter-cyclicality, but the overall pattern skews toward buying more when earnings and the stock are high — the classic advisory-firm reflex of returning windfall cash at the top. Q1’26 then set a record ~$673M returned (blended ~$322/share) — again into strength.

Dividend — conservative, with room to grow. Dividends paid were $3.32/share in FY25 ($128.5M + $15.5M RSU equivalents), a payout of only ~22–24% of EPS; the board raised the quarterly dividend 6% to $0.89 in early 2026 (the ~$3.73 figure in aggregator feeds is the forward annualized rate). A low, well-covered, steadily-raised dividend is appropriate for a cyclical and leaves ample capacity.

M&A is an acqui-hire model, not empire-building. The only “acquisition” of the period is Robey Warshaw (closed 2025-10-01): total consideration ~£71.25M ($95.8M) in stock + $5.3M cash, plus a ~£74.8M ($94.9M PV) one-year deferred slug and $24.5M contingent — but ~£62.7M ($84.3M) is subject to four-year service clawback and is expensed as compensation, alongside performance/retention awards. Five senior bankers joined. This confirms the durable Evercore strategy — grow by lifting out talent (as with ISI in 2014), running most of the cost through comp rather than goodwill: capital-efficient and low integration-risk, but it means the “acquisition” is really a compensation event, not a balance-sheet deployment.

Incentive alignment is sound. CEO John Weinberg earned $17.1M in FY25 (salary $500K + cash bonus $10.75M + stock $5.89M), up from $9.87M (2024) and ~$6.97M (2023) — pay that tracks results both up and down (it fell hard in the 2023 trough), exactly what you want in a cyclical. Founder/Senior Chairman Roger Altman earned $14.84M. ≥50% of named-officer incentive comp is delivered in four-year-vesting RSUs; Weinberg’s total is ~2.6% of net income — reasonable for a founder-caliber franchise. The Up-C wrinkle to note is that Weinberg and Altman also receive LP-unit and Class L Interest distributions (~$1.33M and ~$0.52M respectively, in lieu of cash bonus) that sit partly outside the standard comp table.

Verdict — has management allocated capital intelligently? On balance, yes. Low dividend, opportunistic (if peak-tilted) buyback, no value-destructive M&A, aligned pay. But shareholders should see the buyback for what it is: primarily the price of neutralizing equity comp, not a lever that meaningfully shrinks the count — and one exercised most aggressively at cyclical highs. That is rational cash return, but it is not the compounding share-count reduction the FCF headline implies.

8. Changes and Headwinds — Last Two Years

The last two years are the story of a cyclical trough giving way to one of the strongest advisory up-cycles in EVR’s history, layered on a deliberate multi-year platform build-out. On balance the changes strengthen business quality and share, with two live cautions — comp-ratio operating leverage is decelerating just as the tape prices peak earnings, and management itself is loudly warning against extrapolating a blowout Q1’26.

The cyclical arc. After the 2022–23 M&A recession, industry announced M&A rebounded ~49% in 2025 to ~$4.5T. EVR’s FY25 adjusted net revenue reached ~$3.9B (+29%, ~17% above the 2021 record), adjusted EPS $14.56 (+55%), adjusted operating margin 21.6% (+~300bp). Momentum accelerated into a record Q4’25 (~$1.3B) and then a record Q1’26 (~$1.4B adjusted net revenue, +100% YoY; advisory fees +123%). The firm ranked #3 globally in advisory fees for the second straight year and advised on five of the 15 largest global deals of 2025 — evidence of continued share gains through the cycle.

Strategic move #1 — Robey Warshaw (a genuine departure). Announced 2025-07-30, closed 2025-10-01: the purchase of an elite UK boutique (adviser to ~a quarter of the FTSE 100). This matters because management has long framed itself as “not a serial acquirer” — the growth engine is one-by-one senior hiring — and called Robey “unique,” a “very high bar.” It deepens EMEA large-cap relationships (EVR now has >400 EMEA bankers across nine countries) and is culturally low-risk, but it concentrates value in a handful of star partners whose economics are earn-out/clawback-dependent — a retention question worth tracking. The explicit synergy hypothesis to falsify over 2–3 years: that Robey’s “extraordinary relationships,” which management says haven’t been fully “translated into revenues,” can be monetized across Evercore’s product set.

Strategic move #2 — geographic and product build-out. First offices in Italy, the Nordics, and Saudi Arabia; heavy investment in France; new/expanded floors in New York, Paris, London, Dubai, and Chicago. The more durable change is product diversification: non-M&A revenue reached ~45–50% of the mix — private capital advisory/secondaries, private funds, debt/private-capital-markets advisory, restructuring & liability management, ratings advisory, ECM, and ISI equities. PCA advised on ~half of all industry secondary volumes in a record year; ISI posted a record year and a ninth consecutive quarter of YoY growth; Wealth Management hit record AUM ~$15.5B. This converts EVR from a pure-play M&A cyclical toward a somewhat more diversified advisory platform with counter-cyclical ballast (restructuring ran near records while M&A recovered — an unusual “Goldilocks”).

Talent — the engine, now more expensive. FY25 was the largest external SMD class ever (~19 laterals) plus 11 promotes, ending 2025 at 171 IB SMDs; a January-2026 class lifted the count to 182, with a record 40% of SMDs promoted internally. But management concedes the recruiting market has “heated up a lot,” is “more expensive,” and getting people to move is “harder than two or three years ago” — directly feeding the comp-ratio deceleration.

Capital return and leadership. FY25 returned $812M (second-largest ever: $151M dividends + $661M buyback); Q1’26 set a record ~$673M; the dividend was raised 6%. In July 2025 EVR placed $250M of senior notes (5.17% due 2030; 5.47% due 2032) to refinance ~$86M maturing plus general purposes. Leadership is continuous — John Weinberg Chairman & CEO, Tim LaLonde CFO — with a new Chief Information Officer added in 2025 to lead the AI/technology push.

Headwinds surfacing. Management flagged but downplayed: (a) a software/tech M&A slowdown and an “AI-decompression” narrative (that AI could compress advisory fees) — EVR’s counter is that AI-driven change creates advisory work; (b) middle-market and sponsor-exit activity “slowed, not standstill”; © the October-2025 government shutdown delaying SEC/DOJ deal processing; (d) isolated private-credit losses (Tricolor, First Brands) deemed non-systemic; and (e) macro/geopolitical conditions “more mixed in recent months.” Most importantly, the CFO disclosed Q1’26 was flattered by deals slipping out of Q4’25 and pulled forward from Q2’26, guiding Q2’26 back “closer to” 2Q25’s $839M — the sharpest anti-extrapolation signal in the set.

Verdict — net thesis-strengthening on business quality, thesis-neutral-to-cautionary on valuation timing. The two-year record is real, the share gains durable, the diversification a structural de-risking, the capital return disciplined. But the improvements arrive with earnings and the stock near cycle peaks, comp leverage decelerating, non-comp investment rising, and management explicitly warning the next quarter steps down.

9. Risk Analysis (Risk Matrix)

The dominant risks are cyclical and valuation-driven, not solvency-driven: a cooling deal calendar hitting near-peak earnings while the stock carries a rich-for-its-history multiple, and the perennial advisory reality that the moat can be bid away by competitors for talent. There is essentially no catastrophic-loss risk — the balance sheet is a fortress and the model holds no principal risk against clients.

10. Valuation Discussion (Embedded Expectations)

No price target and no recommendation. Valuation is discussed only as embedded expectations and scenarios.

Where the multiple sits. At ~$334.75 and ~$13.1B market cap (EV ~$13.1B; net cash roughly offsets minority interest), EVR trades at:

• ~23.8x GAAP FY25 diluted EPS ($14.05); ~23.0x adjusted ($14.56); ~19x TTM (~$17.62) — the TTM figure flattered by the front-loaded Q1’26.
• ~3.4x FY25 revenue / EV-to-revenue — in the ~82nd percentile of EVR’s own 10-year P/S range (own range ~1.5x–3.6x); P/B ~8.0x on Evercore-Inc. common book, the ~94th percentile — its richest-ever (P/B is nearly meaningless for a capital-light advisory firm, but the own-history percentile is a legitimate “how richly is the market paying versus its own past” tell).
• ~10–11x reported FCF — but recall FCF overstates distributable cash; on ~$646M adjusted owner-earnings the multiple is closer to ~20x.

Peer context (FY2025, year-end basis). EVR sits at the rich end of the elite-boutique pack, alongside Moelis:

EVR and Moelis are the priciest on sales; PJT is cheaper with a restructuring/funds hedge; Lazard is cheapest (asset-management drag and lower returns); HLI trades ~22x GAAP / ~18x adjusted / ~13.4x EV/EBITDA but with the group’s best cycle-resilience. On a quality-adjusted basis, EVR is not obviously mispriced against peers — it is a premium franchise at a premium-to-in-line price, in a group that is broadly fully valued.

The embedded expectation — decomposed. The advisory-firm valuation trap is that the market normally pays a low multiple on peak earnings and a high multiple on trough earnings (EVR was ~7x on 2021 peak EPS; ~25x on 2023 trough EPS). Today it is paying an above-average multiple (~20x+) on above-average (near-peak) earnings — a double dose of optimism. For ~$335 to be merely fair value, the market must be underwriting that (i) the 2025/Q1’26 revenue run-rate is a durable base, not a peak; (ii) the M&A upcycle extends multiple years with continued EVR share gains; and (iii) comp-ratio leverage keeps grinding margins higher — even as management guides the ratio flatter and the next quarter down.

Scenarios (illustrative, on normalized advisory earnings — not forecasts, not targets):

• Bear (deal calendar cools): revenue reverts toward ~$3.0–3.3B, adjusted EPS ~$11–13, and the multiple compresses toward EVR’s cyclical ~14–16x → a materially lower equity value. This is the standard advisory drawdown; the −45% and −44% episodes on the price map show it can happen fast.
• Base (moderate upcycle continues): FY26 revenue ~$4.0–4.3B, adjusted EPS ~$16–18 at ~18–20x → roughly the current zone. The stock is priced for this.
• Bull (multi-year M&A supercycle + share gains): revenue $4.7B+, adjusted EPS ~$20–22 at ~20x → a meaningful premium to today.

What the market is underwriting correctly: EVR’s quality, share gains, clean accounting, net-cash balance sheet, and secular tailwind. What it may be underwriting incorrectly: the durability of near-peak earnings and continued margin expansion — i.e., paying up for the boom to keep booming. The skew at ~$335 is, in this analyst’s read, asymmetric to the downside relative to a genuinely trough-priced cyclical.

11. Variant Perception

Consensus. The Street broadly views EVR as the highest-torque, highest-quality large-cap independent advisory franchise, a prime beneficiary of the boutique share-shift and the 2025–26 M&A upcycle — a “own the best boutique into the cycle” long. Sell-side price targets bracket the debate around the current price (UBS Neutral $350; KBW Outperform $390), implying modest upside and general comfort with the multiple.

Strongest bull case. The M&A recovery is genuinely early-innings; ~$1.3–2.6T of PE dry powder and a record backlog of aged sponsor assets must clear; EVR is the largest independent and still taking share (#3 globally in advisory fees), with a ~50%-larger SMD base than in 2021 and 45+ ramping, a widening non-M&A book (~45–50%), the Robey UK franchise monetizing, ~30% ROE, net cash, and honest accounting. If FY25 is a base rather than a peak, earnings can run well above today’s run-rate for several years and the stock re-rates with them.

Strongest bear case. Advisory is the most cyclical fee business in financials, and the market is paying an above-average multiple on near-peak earnings — a double-count of optimism that reverses hard if the deal calendar cools. Management itself flagged that Q1’26 borrowed from adjacent quarters and guided Q2 down; comp-ratio leverage is decelerating; non-comp costs are rising; the buyback merely offsets dilution and is exercised at cyclical highs; the “moat” is people who are getting more expensive; and an AI-decompression of advisory fees is a live (if unproven) tail. On a genuine down-cycle, both earnings and the multiple compress.

The 3–5 assumptions that decide it:

1. Is FY25/Q1’26 a durable base or a cyclical peak? (The whole thesis hinges here.)
2. Does comp-ratio leverage continue, or has it flattened? (Margin direction.)
3. Do share gains persist as the field crowds and talent costs rise? (Moat durability.)
4. Does AI create or compress advisory fee pools? (Structural tail.)
5. Will the multiple hold at ~20x+ on peak earnings, or mean-revert toward the cyclical ~14–16x?

Factor-positioning read (empirical). A quantitative factor model places EVR as a high-beta (~1.5–1.7 market beta), cyclical, broker-dealer/financials name with a positive dividend-yield tilt and negative loadings on Growth and Low-Volatility — i.e., statistically a high-beta value-cyclical, not a defensive compounder. Its risk-adjusted record is strong over 3 years (annualized return ~+43%, Sharpe ~1.13) but the trailing 6 months are negative (~−16%), and the 10-year max drawdown is ~−67% — a quantified reminder that this franchise halves (and worse) in downturns. Factor-similar peers (JEF, SF, PIPR, MC, HLI, PJT) confirm the capital-markets-cyclical cohort. The tape has already handed back ~12% from the January high on the “don’t extrapolate” message — consistent with a high-beta cyclical rolling off a peak, not a falling knife and not a washed-out value name. This supports the variant read that consensus may be offsides in underpricing the peak-earnings risk, not in doubting the franchise.

12. Fact vs. Interpretation

13. Open Questions

1. How much of Q1’26’s record was true underlying strength vs. pull-forward? Management said deals slipped in from Q4’25 and were pulled forward from Q2’26 — the clean run-rate is uncertain until 2H’26 prints.
2. What is the true restructuring/liability-management revenue? EVR does not disclose it separately, so the size of its counter-cyclical hedge (and how it compares to HLI’s ~20%) is an estimate.
3. Will Robey Warshaw retain and monetize? Value is concentrated in ~5 partners on four-year clawbacks; the revenue-synergy thesis is unproven.
4. Does the comp ratio actually reach the mid-50s%s over time, or is ~64% the new floor given talent inflation?
5. AI: fee-pool creator or compressor? Directionally unknowable today; watch fee-per-deal and FVA-type volume economics.
6. Founder/succession depth beyond Weinberg/Altman/Hyman — how deep is the bench if a franchise face departs?

14. What Must Be True

Bull case — what must be true, and its falsification test. The 2025/Q1’26 run-rate is a durable base, the M&A upcycle extends multiple years, EVR keeps taking share, and comp-ratio leverage keeps grinding margins higher — so earnings run above today’s level for several years and the stock re-rates with them.

• Falsification test: two or more quarters in 2H’26–2027 of YoY advisory-fee declines (adjusting for the Q1’26 pull-forward), and/or a comp ratio that stops improving or rises. Either would confirm FY25/Q1’26 as a cyclical peak, not a base.

Bear case — what must be true, and its falsification test. FY25/Q1’26 is a cyclical peak; the deal calendar cools; near-peak earnings and an above-average multiple compress together toward EVR’s cyclical ~14–16x on lower normalized EPS — a classic advisory drawdown.

• Falsification test: advisory fees grow YoY through 2H’26 and into 2027 excluding the Q1’26 borrow, sponsor-exit and large-cap activity broaden, and the comp ratio keeps falling — which would show the upcycle is genuinely early-innings and today’s multiple is on a base, not a peak.

The evidence to watch is the same for both sides: the 2H’26 advisory run-rate ex the Q1’26 pull-forward, and the direction of the comp ratio. Those two data points resolve most of the debate.

15. Source Appendix

See the separate Source Appendix (below) for the full, dated source list. Primary sources: Evercore Inc. FY2025 Form 10-K (filed 2026-02-20, accession evr-20251231), FY2024/2023 10-Ks, Q4-FY2025 (2026-02-04) and Q1-FY2026 (2026-04-29) earnings releases and call transcripts, the FY2025 DEF 14A proxy, and the trailing five-year Form 3/4/5 corpus. Quantitative cross-checks: company financial-data providers (statements, ratios, enterprise value, valuation multiples), valuation-percentile and market-price data, and a quantitative factor model (factor loadings, risk-adjusted leaderboard). Peer cross-read: public disclosures and market data for Houlihan Lokey (HLI), Moelis (MC), PJT Partners (PJT), and Lazard (LAZ). All third-party aggregated data reconciled to the filings; where aggregator figures differed from the 10-K (ROE basis, “SBC” composition, lease vs. debt classification), the filing governs and the discrepancy is noted in the body.

APPENDIX A — Standard Diligence Questionnaire

Evercore Inc. (NYSE: EVR) · Report date 2026-07-10 · Supplemental to the main analysis. Answers are grounded in the underlying filings and data; Fact/Interpretation/Assumption labels are applied where it matters.

General

What thoughtful questions have other investors asked about this company? The recurring, sharpest questions are: (1) How much of the record 2025/Q1’26 is a durable base versus a cyclical peak flattered by deal-timing pull-forward? (management explicitly disclosed Q1’26 borrowed from both Q4’25 and Q2’26); (2) Can the compensation ratio keep falling (management guides further improvement will be “meaningfully more modest”; sub-60% “not a quick return”); (3) Is the buyback shrinking the count or just offsetting stock comp? (it is largely the latter — the count still rose ~1% in FY25); (4) Will Robey Warshaw retain and monetize?; and (5) Does AI create or compress advisory fee pools? The valuation-versus-cycle-position question is the master question that subsumes the rest.

Cyclicality & Earnings Nature

Are earnings at a cyclical high or low? A cyclical high (Interpretation, well-supported). FY25 net revenue ($3.86B) is a record, ~17% above the 2021 prior peak; Q1’26 was a record quarter (+100% YoY) that management said was flattered by pull-forward, guiding Q2’26 back toward last year’s $839M.

Driven by the external environment or internal actions? Both, but the external M&A cycle dominates — industry announced M&A rose ~49% in 2025. Internal actions (SMD hiring, non-M&A diversification, Robey) amplify share within that cycle but do not override it.

How stable are revenues? Low stability — this is the most cyclical fee business in financials: revenue swung −26% peak-to-trough (2021→2023). Success-fee, closing-timing-dependent revenue is lumpy quarter to quarter (the auditor’s critical audit matter).

Outlook for products/services? Constructive medium-term (secular boutique share-shift, early-innings M&A upcycle, ~$1.3–2.6T PE dry powder, widening non-M&A book) but near-term the company itself guides the next quarter down.

How big is this market — growing, shrinking, domestic or international? Large and structurally growing for independents: elite-boutique US M&A fee share rose from <15% (2018) to >27% (2024). EVR is ~74% US / ~24% non-US, expanding in EMEA (Robey Warshaw), the Gulf, and the Nordics.

Business Quality & Competitive Moat

Is the industry getting more or less competitive? More competitive — a crowded elite-boutique field plus bulge-bracket rebuilds, with the talent market “heated up a lot” and “more expensive.”

How profitable is the business (ROIC, ROE)? ~30% common-equity ROE (Fact, corrected — aggregator “25%” is a return on total capital). ROIC is not a meaningful lens for a near-zero-invested-capital advisory firm; returns are high because almost no capital is held, and the ~65% comp ratio caps the equity holder’s share.

How profitable is the industry — how many competitors, what barriers to entry? Capital-light and high-return, which is precisely why entry is easy at the single-MD/boutique level (low barriers) and hard only at the scaled-platform level (high barriers). ~65% comp is the industry’s structural “tax.”

Can the business be easily understood? Yes — a fee-for-advice model with a clean two-segment structure; the only subtlety is the Up-C partnership/adjusted-EPS wrapper (which here is modest and honest).

Can it be undermined by foreign low-cost labor? No — this is high-end judgment/relationship work; the “labor” risk is high-cost talent poaching, not low-cost substitution.

Do brands matter? Yes — the firm brand (“Evercore,” independent, conflict-free) is the core intangible and the closest thing to a moat.

What is the nature of competition? Reputation- and relationship-based competition for discrete mandates; won and re-won deal-by-deal.

Customers’ switching costs? Near zero — clients hire per transaction with no lock-in. This is the moat’s central weakness.

Financial Condition & Balance Sheet

Assets not fully recognized on the balance sheet? Yes, in economic substance — the franchise value sits in the banker roster and brand, which are expensed, not capitalized (why tangible book, ~$46/sh, so understates value).

Off-balance-sheet liabilities? Operating-lease liabilities (~$567M) are on-balance-sheet under ASC 842; the material committed item is ~$860M of unrecognized future comp (RSU/K–P/deferred cash) that will hit future P&L.

How conservative is the accounting? Unusually conservative for an Up-C — GAAP-to-adjusted EPS gap only 3.6%; GAAP EPS is the honest number. The one QoE caveat is that reported FCF (~$1.18B) overstates distributable cash (~$646M adjusted NI is cleaner).

How CapEx-hungry is the business? Barely — capex $74M (~1.9% of revenue), D&A $32.6M. Essentially asset-light.

Capital Allocation & Management

How much FCF does the business generate; how is it used; what is the philosophy? Reported FCF ~$1.18B (owner-earnings closer to ~$646M). Uses: ~$389M genuine buyback + ~$271M net-settlement withholding + ~$144M dividends in FY25 (~$812M total return). Philosophy: low dividend, opportunistic (peak-tilted) buyback, no balance-sheet M&A.

Significant acquisitions recently? Only Robey Warshaw (closed Oct-2025) — an acqui-hire run mostly through compensation expense, not a balance-sheet deal.

Buying back shares? Yes, but mostly to offset stock comp — the basic count still rose ~0.9% in FY25 despite $661.8M of repurchases; −5% over five years.

Issuing large amounts of new shares to insiders? Yes, structurally — bankers are paid in RSUs; ~$500M of equity-dilutive comp annually, neutralized (imperfectly) by buybacks.

Compensation policy of directors/management? Aligned and cyclical — CEO Weinberg $17.1M FY25 (fell hard in the 2023 trough; ~2.6% of net income); ≥50% of NEO incentive comp in four-year-vesting RSUs; founders also draw LP/Class L distributions in lieu of cash bonus.

Motivations of management? Founder-caliber, ownership-aligned (Altman/Weinberg hold LP units); incentives track shareholder outcomes reasonably well, though the model inherently rewards the banker class first.

Valuation & Market Data

Is the stock an ADR, MLP, or K-1 issuer? No — Class A common stock; Up-C structure with Evercore LP units held by insiders (a 1099 name, not a K-1 to public holders).

Dividend policy? Low and steadily rising — $3.32/sh paid in FY25 (~22–24% payout); quarterly dividend raised 6% to $0.89 in early 2026; ~1.0% yield.

How profitable is the business? Very, on capital employed (~30% ROE); adjusted operating margin ~21.7%, capped by the ~65% comp ratio.

Is net income diverging from cash from operations? CFO (~$1.26B) runs above net income (~$592M) largely on the ~$675M non-cash/deferred-comp add-back and accrual timing — a divergence that overstates distributable cash rather than signaling accrual aggression.

Risks & Downside

What factors would cause the stock to decline? A cooling M&A cycle hitting near-peak earnings; a comp ratio that stops improving; multiple compression from a rich-for-its-history level; an AI-decompression scare; talent flight; a soft 2H’26 confirming the Q1’26 pull-forward.

Risk of a catastrophic loss? Very low — net cash, no principal trading book, no client-facing balance-sheet risk; the only tail is a reputational/franchise blow-up, none evident.

Chance of a total loss? Negligible — a debt-light, net-cash, fee-based franchise; the realistic downside is a cyclical 40–60%+ drawdown (the 10-year max drawdown was ~−67%), not a zero.

Recent News & Events

Has the business environment changed recently? Yes — a strong 2024–25 M&A recovery to record revenue, then a Jan–Jul 2026 ~12% pullback on “don’t extrapolate Q1” guidance and an AI-decompression debate. Recent sell-side: UBS Neutral PT $350 (2026-07-08); KBW Outperform PT $390 (2026-07-10).

Significant acquisitions? Robey Warshaw (closed 2025-10-01).

Change in accounting policies? None material identified.

Recent changes — new markets, facilities, management? New offices (Italy, Nordics, Saudi Arabia), expanded floors (NY, Paris, London, Dubai, Chicago), a new CIO for the AI/technology build-out; leadership otherwise continuous (Weinberg CEO, LaLonde CFO). $250M senior-note placement in July 2025.

APPENDIX B — Source Appendix

Evercore Inc. (NYSE: EVR) · Report date 2026-07-10 · CIK 0001360901. Primary sources first; all third-party aggregated data reconciled to filings. Where aggregator figures diverged from the 10-K (ROE basis, “SBC” composition, lease-vs-debt classification), the filing governs and the discrepancy is noted in the memo body.

Primary — SEC filings (EDGAR, CIK 0001360901)

Primary — earnings-call transcripts

Quantitative cross-checks (third-party; reconciled to filings)

Peer / industry cross-read

Notes on data reconciliation

• ROE: ~30% on common equity (memo) vs aggregator “25%” (return on total capital) — filing-derived figure used.
• “SBC” $675M: decomposed to ~$500M equity-dilutive + ~$166M deferred cash comp per the 10-K comp footnote.
• Debt vs leases: funded debt is $588.2M private-placement senior notes; the ~$567M is operating lease liabilities, not finance leases.
• Dividend: $3.32/share paid in FY25 (10-K); ~$3.73 is the forward annualized rate after the early-2026 6% raise.