Lazard (LAZ) Forms Alliance With Independence Point Advisors Lazard (LAZ) forms a strategic alliance with the newly launched women-owned investment bank and advisory firm, Independence Point Advisors.

Lazard Ltd LAZ has formed a strategic alliance with the newly launched Independence Point Advisors ("IPA") to provide a range of customized C-suite and board-level services that go beyond traditional investment banking. Lazard will be holding a minority interest in IPA.
IPA, founded by industry veteran Anne Clarke Wolff, has been recently launched as a women-owned investment bank and advisory firm. IPA has been founded on the belief that today's clients have a range of opportunities and challenges that require diverse talent to navigate.
Peter R. Orszag, the CEO of Lazard's Financial Advisory segment, has stated, "We are looking forward to collaborating with Anne, a fantastic and proven leader, and her team, who have a broad network of CEOs, senior executives and board members. IPA brings a new look and feel, and level of perspective and professionalism to Wall Street that fits well with our continuing evolution in modernizing our firm, while providing a broad array of services to clients, supporting diversity and creating commercial opportunities and adjacent businesses."
IPA provides investment banking services to clients with a modern approach, complementing Lazard's M&A, Restructuring and Capital Markets Advisory businesses. Also, Lazard will now be the exclusive partner to IPA-generated M&A assignments.
Wolff commented, "Lazard is a preeminent investment bank, and has the right leadership, culture and forward-thinking approach to business that make it a perfect match for us. I look forward to working with our colleagues at Lazard to widen the aperture of traditional investment banking and bring clients an unparalleled combination of diverse experience and authentic perspectives."
Lazard is a geographically diversified company, with presence in almost all the major global markets. Revenues from the company's Financial Advisory segment contributed nearly 54% to total revenues in the nine-month period ending Sep 30, 2021.
Now, advisory fees are usually paid upon the successful completion of a deal and Lazard is anticipated to continue to rely on advisory fees for a substantial portion of its revenues in the foreseeable future. Thus, if there is any near-term weakness in the economic and global financial market conditions, or further pandemic-induced uncertainty that negatively impacts global M&A deal value and volumes, and other capital market activities, then Lazard's advisory fees growth might be hurt.
Nevertheless, based on the strong team of indigenous professionals in the Financial Advisory segment and diversified asset mix in the company's Asset Management segment, overall revenues are expected to improve in the long term.
Over the past year, shares of Lazard have gained 20.3% compared with 22.3% growth recorded by the industry.

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Currently, Lazard carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today's Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
Notably, before Wolff founded IPA, she has held senior leadership positions for more than three decades at Bank of America BAC, JPMorgan JPM and Citigroup C.
Over the past year, shares of Bank of America have rallied 59.7%, whereas JPMorgan stock has gained 33.3%. Citigroup's share price has increased 17.5% over the same time frame.
Over the past 60 days, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for Bank of America's current-year earnings has been revised 4.5% upward while that of JPMorgan has been revised upward by 6.4%. Current-year earnings estimates for Citigroup have moved up 5.8%.

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