PJT Partners (NYSE:PJT) used its fourth-quarter and full-year 2025 earnings call to highlight record financial results across the firm, led by strength in Strategic Advisory and a strong finish in Restructuring and PJT Park Hill. Management also emphasized continued hiring, significant share repurchases, and what it described as a constructive—though “inherently fragile”—backdrop for capital markets heading into 2026.
Record 2025 results and capital returns
Chairman and CEO Paul Taubman said the firm delivered record revenues, record adjusted pre-tax income, and record adjusted earnings per share in 2025, attributing performance to sustained investment in “best-in-class talent” and a collaborative culture. He noted that partner headcount increased 12% year over year, while total headcount grew 7%.
Financial details: revenue growth, margins, and taxes
CFO Helen Meates reported total revenues of $1.714 billion for full-year 2025, up 15% year over year, and said all businesses posted record revenues, with Strategic Advisory the primary driver of growth for the year. Fourth-quarter revenues were $535 million, up 12% year over year, reflecting the firm’s “record revenue quarter,” with growth primarily driven by Restructuring and PJT Park Hill.
On expenses, Meates said full-year adjusted compensation expense was $1.15 billion, equating to a 67.1% compensation ratio, down from 69% in 2024. The fourth-quarter compensation ratio was 66.2%, which Meates said reflected higher compensation accruals earlier in the year. The company plans to provide 2026 compensation guidance when it reports first-quarter results.
Adjusted non-compensation expenses totaled $207 million for the full year, up 12% year over year, driven mainly by higher occupancy costs tied to additional space in New York and London, as well as higher travel and business-related expenses. Fourth-quarter adjusted non-compensation expense was $54 million, up 16% year over year, with similar drivers. As a percentage of revenue, adjusted non-compensation expense was 12.1% for 2025 and 10.1% for the fourth quarter. Meates said the firm expects non-compensation expense growth in 2026 to be at a similar rate to 2025.
Adjusted pre-tax income was $357 million for the year and $127 million for the quarter, with adjusted pre-tax margins of 20.8% and 23.7%, respectively. The effective tax rate was 14.1% for 2025, which Meates said was below the firm’s previous estimate of 15.5% due to a “significant tax benefit from the delivery of vested shares” and final income allocations across state, local, and foreign entities. For 2026, she said the firm’s current estimate is for a tax rate in the “high-teens %.”
Adjusted “as converted” earnings were $6.98 per share for 2025, up from $5.02 in 2024, and $2.55 per share for the fourth quarter, up from $1.90 in the prior-year quarter. Weighted average share count was 43.9 million shares, slightly down year over year. Management said it repurchased about 2.4 million shares in share equivalents in 2025.
Meates also noted the firm had received exchange notices for an additional 850,000 partnership units and, subject to board approval, intends to exchange those units for cash, describing partnership exchanges as an effective way to repurchase shares without impacting float. The board approved a quarterly dividend of $0.25 per share.
Business performance: Restructuring, Park Hill, and Strategic Advisory
Taubman said Restructuring produced record fourth-quarter and full-year results despite “broadly favorable macroeconomic and capital market conditions,” citing companies facing over-leveraged balance sheets, challenged business models, technological disruption, and shifting consumer preferences and government policies. In response to analyst questions, he characterized the environment as a “multi-year period of elevated” liability management and restructuring activity, adding that the firm had not seen any “diminution” in demand and believed it was seeing early signs of activity growing.
He also said the firm is seeing restructuring activity across multiple sectors, mentioning parts of healthcare, software (given pressures from AI), media, and retail, while emphasizing the trend is broad-based rather than confined to a narrow set of verticals.
On PJT Park Hill, Taubman said modest capital returns have strained primary fundraising and pushed GPs and LPs toward alternative liquidity solutions, while investor interest in secondaries has continued to grow. He noted global primary fundraising volumes declined for the fourth straight year, but said the firm’s Park Hill business delivered its “strongest quarter ever,” allowing full-year results to exceed 2024’s prior record. Looking forward, he said strength in Private Capital Solutions and structured products should more than offset any decline in primary fundraising.
In Strategic Advisory, Taubman said M&A activity “increased sharply” in 2025, calling it the second-best year ever for announced M&A activity and citing strong debt and equity markets, greater confidence in regulatory outcomes, and improved CEO confidence. He said Strategic Advisory revenues “significantly outpaced” 2024’s record levels, with record results for both the quarter and the year. He also highlighted the firm’s platform expansion and “maturation” as a contributor to improved performance.
2026 outlook: constructive backdrop, but fragile sentiment
Looking ahead, Taubman said the M&A environment remains “highly constructive,” with momentum from the second half of 2025 likely to carry into 2026, supported by strong capital markets and regulatory and CEO confidence. However, he cautioned that “market sentiment can turn on a dime,” pointing to geopolitical risks and debates around the pace of AI development, capital deployment, and economic returns.
Taubman said that while the firm began 2026 with a pipeline of announced transactions comparable to year-ago levels, its pre-announced pipeline—measured by both mandates and revenue opportunity—was “up meaningfully” from a year ago and near record levels. He framed PJT’s opportunity as a market share story, emphasizing efforts to broaden the firm’s footprint across sponsors, industries, and geographies.
On compensation ratio trajectory, Taubman said the firm had previously stated that compensation as a percentage of revenue had peaked during a period of maximal investment and lower M&A velocity, and he said he did not believe the firm was done working the ratio down—though the pace will depend on markets and the firm’s rate of investment.
Separately, management said it will change revenue reporting going forward to a single line item, no longer breaking out advisory, placement, and other designations. Meates said the placement fee line was once a reasonable proxy for PJT Park Hill, but that is “no longer the case” given the expansion of Private Capital Solutions and growth in corporate placement capabilities.
About PJT Partners (NYSE:PJT)
PJT Partners is a global advisory-focused investment bank that delivers strategic advisory, restructuring and special situations, and capital solutions to corporations, partnerships, and governments. The firm operates through three primary business segments: Strategic Advisory, which covers mergers and acquisitions, shareholder advisory, and capital markets advisory; Restructuring and Special Situations, which provides advice on debt and liability management, distressed mergers and acquisitions, and financial restructurings; and Park Hill, the firm’s dedicated capital-raising and secondary advisory business for private equity, real estate, hedge funds, and infrastructure.
The Strategic Advisory practice at PJT Partners assists clients with complex transactions such as cross-border mergers, spin-offs, divestitures, and takeover defenses, drawing on deep industry expertise and global reach.
