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Back of Napkin

Lazard Inc LAZ

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Lazard's asset-management arm just had its best half of inflows in roughly twenty years while its advisory arm shrank 9%, and the chief executive sold 125,000 shares two days ago.

The setup turns on a 4.7% dividend paying you to wait for a turnaround whose two halves keep taking turns disappointing.

LAZ · price with moving averages

Daily · 6MWeekly · 3Y
$24$33$43$52$61 Sep '23Apr '24Nov '24Jun '25Jan '26Aug '26 BID
EMAs82140

Source: market data.

The business

Lazard is the oldest name in advisory, 175 years of counsel to governments and boards, bolted to a $285B asset manager known for international and emerging-market equities. The two halves were meant to smooth each other, fees on assets steady, deal fees cyclical, and the current chapter under Peter Orszag is a rebuild: hire aggressively in advisory, reflate the neglected asset manager, and drag the compensation ratio from 70 toward a stated target of 60 or below by 2030. The moat is the name itself, which still commands board seats worldwide, and an asset-management distribution footprint most boutiques would kill for.

Inside the complete Back of Napkin

  1. 01The business
  2. 02The numbers
  3. 03Management
  4. 04How it fails or surprises you
  5. 05The shape of the payoff
  6. 06Closing thoughts
  7. 07Methodology

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