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Experienced People.
Our professionals concentrate on solving complex financial problems and executing
specialized investment strategies. We strive to maintain and enhance our base of
highly talented professionals and pride ourselves on being able to offer clients
more senior-level attention than may be available from many of our competitors.
Independence.
We are an independent firm, free of many of the conflicts that can arise at larger
financial institutions as a result of their varied sales, trading, underwriting,
research and lending activities. We believe that recent instances of perceived or
actual conflicts of interest, and a desire to avoid any potential future conflicts,
have increased the demand by managements and boards of directors for trusted, unbiased
advice from professionals whose main product is advice.
Reputation.
Our firm has a brand name with over 150 years of history. We are focused on providing
world-class professional advice in complex strategic and financial assignments,
utilizing both our global capabilities and deeply rooted, local know-how.
Focus.
We are focused on two primary businesses—Financial Advisory and Asset Management—rather
than on a broad range of financial services. We believe this focus has helped, and
will continue to help, us attract clients and recruit professionals who want to
work in a firm where these activities are the central focus.
Global Presence with Local Relationships.
We believe that linking our talented indigenous professionals, deep local roots
and industry expertise across offices enables us to be a global firm while maintaining
a local identity. This approach enables us to build close, local relationships with
our clients and to develop insight into both local and international commercial,
economic and political issues affecting their businesses. We do not regard any single
jurisdiction as our home country.
Balance.
Our Financial Advisory business includes both our Mergers and Acquisitions practice
and our Financial Restructuring practice, which historically have been countercyclical
to each other, thus helping to stabilize our revenue stream. Our Asset Management
business helps provide further stability, principally because we generate significant
recurring client business from year to year. Our revenue is also geographically
diversified: in 2004 we derived 50% of our net revenue from continuing operations
from offices in North America, 47% from offices in Europe and 3% from offices in
the rest of the world.
Strong Culture.
We believe that our people are united by a desire to be a part of an independent
firm in which their activities are at the core and by a commitment to excellence
and integrity in their activities. This is reinforced by the significant economic
stake our managing directors have in our success. In our opinion, the strength of
our many long-term client relationships is a testament to our distinctive culture
and approach to providing superior advice to our clients.
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