1849 –
The brothers follow the Gold Rush and take the firm to San Francisco. The firm expands into banking and foreign exchange, increasingly devoted to finance.

1852 –
One of the brothers returns to France and opens Lazard Frères et Cie. in Paris with the initial purpose of advising the French government on its gold buying.

1856 –
The brothers' cousin, Alexandre Weill (Michel David-Weill's great-grandfather), moves to the US to join the company as their bookkeeper. The US arm of the company continues its expansion adding arbitrage services during the Civil War.

1870 –
The brothers open an office in London named Lazard Brothers. London is a branch office until 1905.

1876 –
Lazard Frères is now wholly focused on its banking operations.

1880 –
Alexandre Weill, who remains in charge of the US business, takes it to New York from San Francisco.

Each of the three offices grows into a leading investment or merchant bank in its respective area.

1905 –
Robert Kindersley enters the partnership and the London branch becomes a separate company. He is a well-known stockbroker, eventually to become the first Lord Kindersley, a Director of the Bank of England and Governor of the Hudson's Bay Company.

1919 –
The London partnership now becomes a private company as the Bank of England restricts foreign ownership of UK banks. The family sells 45% of Lazard Brothers to SP Pearson & Sons (now Pearson PLC), a civil engineering company.

1932 –
SP Pearson increases its stake to 80%.

During the early years of the 20th century, David-Weill (Alexandre's son; the family surname was legally changed to the hyphenated version ) runs the firm out of Paris together with Michel and André Lazard, sons of the first generation Lazard brothers.

As neither of the scions of the Lazard family have male heirs, David-Weill becomes sole senior partner of the firm before the Second World War. He is a celebrated French financier, Régent of the Banque de France, renowned art collector and philanthropist.

In turn, David David-Weill's son, Pierre, becomes a partner of the Paris office in 1927.

1940s –
Pierre David-Weill flees from the Nazi invasion to New York during the Second World War, alongside one of the younger non-family Paris partners Andre Meyer. Together they shift the focus to the US branch of the firm until the end of the war.

1950s –
Lazard Frères & Co. in New York comes into its own in the 1950s and 1960s under the leadership of Andre Meyer who had become Head of Lazard's US operations in 1944 upon Pierre David-Weill's return to France.

Meyer and a little later Felix Rohatyn build a firm which attains Mergers and Acquisitions supremacy. Pierre David-Weill's son Michel helps rebuild Lazard Frères et Cie. in Paris in the late 1950s, having joined the firm in 1956.

1970 –
Lazard Asset Management (LAM) formed.

1970s –
A turning point for the firm as Andre Meyer falls into ill-health and Michel David-Weill oversees the firm's New York operations as well as Paris.

1977 –
Michel David-Weill takes over as Chairman.

1979 –
Death of Andre Meyer.

In the late 1970s, Lazard Frères et Cie. in Paris does not follow the trend toward branch retail networks and thus avoids being nationalized in 1981 along with most of France's banks.

1984 –
Michel David-Weill decides to unite the Lazard firms as he recognizes and anticipates the trend for global Mergers and Acquisitions deals. He forms a new entity, Lazard Partners, which owns stakes in the New York and Paris offices and he buys back a large stake of the London office from Pearson. Pearson reduces its direct stake in Lazard Brothers in exchange for a 50% interest in the new entity Lazard Partners.

1999 –
The David-Weill family buys out Pearson.

2000 –
The unification of the Paris, London and New York Houses is completed to form Lazard LLC.

2002 –
Bruce Wasserstein joins the firm as Head of Lazard.

2004 –
Ashish Bhutani named CEO of LAM.

Lazard files for public listing in US.

2005 –
Lazard ends 157 years of private ownership and begins trading publicly on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol "LAZ".