Evercore Partners (EVR) Risk Factors

There is a risk that our employees could engage in fraud or misconduct that adversely affects our business. Our Investment Banking & Equities business often requires that we deal with confidential matters of great significance to our clients. If our employees were to improperly use or disclose confidential information provided by our clients or other confidential information, we could be subject to investigations, actions and sanctions by regulators and enforcement agencies and suffer serious harm to our reputation, financial position, current client relationships and ability to attract future clients and employees. We are also subject to a number of obligations and standards arising from our Investment Management business and our authority over the assets managed by our Investment Management business. The violation of these obligations and standards by any of our employees would adversely affect our clients and us. It is not always possible to deter employee misconduct, and the precautions we take to detect and prevent this activity may not be effective in all cases. If our employees engage in misconduct, our business may be adversely affected. In addition, the U.S. regulators and enforcement agencies, including the U.S. Department of Justice and the SEC, continue to devote greater resources to the enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, anti-money laundering laws and anti-corruption laws, and the United Kingdom and other jurisdictions have significantly expanded the reach of its anti-bribery laws. While we have developed and implemented policies and procedures designed to ensure strict compliance with anti-bribery, anti-money laundering, anti-corruption and other laws, such policies and procedures may not be effective in all instances to prevent violations. Any determination that any of our employees have violated these laws (or similar laws of other jurisdictions in which we do business) could subject us to, among other things, civil and criminal penalties, material fines, profit disgorgement, injunction on future conduct, securities litigation and reputational damage, any one of which could adversely affect our business, financial position or results of operations.

Our Equities business has entered into service agreements with third-party service providers for order management, trade execution, settlement and clearance of client securities transactions and research distribution. This business faces the risk of operational failure of any of the vendors we use to facilitate our securities transactions or research distribution. Our senior management and officers oversee and manage these relationships. Poor oversight and control or inferior performance or service on the part of the service provider could result in loss of customers and violations of applicable rules and regulations. Any such failure could adversely affect our ability to effect transactions and to manage our exposure to risk.

We may incur costs associated with new or expanded lines of business, including guaranteed or fixed compensation costs, prior to these lines of business generating significant revenue. In addition, certain aspects of our cost structure, such as costs for occupancy and equipment rentals, communication and information technology services, and depreciation and amortization are largely fixed, and we may not be able to timely adjust these costs to match fluctuations in revenue. If our revenue declines, or fails to increase commensurately with the expenses associated with new or expanded lines of business, our profitability may be materially adversely affected.

If Evercore Inc. were to cease participation in the management of Evercore LP, its interest in Evercore LP could be deemed an "investment security" for purposes of the 1940 Act. Generally, a person is deemed to be an "investment company" if it owns investment securities having a value exceeding 40% of the value of its total assets (exclusive of U.S. government securities and cash items), absent an applicable exemption. Evercore Inc. will have no material assets other than its equity interest in Evercore LP. A determination that this interest was an investment security could result in Evercore Inc. being an investment company under the 1940 Act and becoming subject to the registration and other requirements of the 1940 Act. The 1940 Act and the rules thereunder contain detailed parameters for the organization and operations of investment companies. Among other things, the 1940 Act and the rules thereunder limit or prohibit transactions with affiliates, impose limitations on the issuance of debt and equity securities, prohibit the issuance of stock options, and impose certain governance requirements. We intend to conduct our operations so that Evercore Inc. will not be deemed to be an investment company under the 1940 Act. However, if anything were to happen which would cause Evercore Inc. to be deemed to be an investment company under the 1940 Act, requirements imposed by the 1940 Act, including limitations on our capital structure, ability to transact business with affiliates and ability to compensate key employees, could make it impractical for us to continue our business as currently conducted, impair the agreements and arrangements between and among Evercore Inc., Evercore LP or our Senior Managing Directors, or any combination thereof and materially adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

As we have expanded the scope of our businesses and client base, we increasingly confront actual, potential and perceived conflicts of interest relating to our Investment Banking & Equities and Investment Management businesses. It is possible that actual, potential or perceived conflicts could give rise to client dissatisfaction, litigation or regulatory enforcement actions. Appropriately identifying and managing actual or perceived conflicts of interest is complex and difficult, and our reputation could be damaged if we fail, or appear to fail, to deal appropriately with one or more potential or actual conflicts of interest. Regulatory scrutiny of, or litigation in connection with, conflicts of interest would have a material adverse effect on our reputation which would materially adversely affect our business in a number of ways, including an inability to recruit additional professionals and a reluctance of potential clients and counterparties to do business with us. Additionally, client-imposed conflicts requirements could place additional limitations on us, for example, by limiting our ability to accept advisory engagements. Policies, controls and procedures that we may be required to implement to address additional regulatory requirements, including as a result of additional foreign jurisdictions in which we operate, our equities business and our underwriting activities, or to mitigate actual or potential conflicts of interest, may result in increased costs, including for additional personnel and infrastructure and information technology improvements, as well as limit our activities and reduce the benefit of positive synergies that we seek to cultivate across our businesses. For example, due to our equity research activities through our equities business, we face potential conflicts of interest, including situations where our publication of research may conflict with the interests of an advisory client, or allegations that research objectivity is being inappropriately impacted by advisory client considerations.

We historically have earned a substantial portion of our revenue from fees paid to us by our Investment Banking & Equities clients for advisory and underwriting services. These fees are typically payable upon the successful completion of a particular transaction or restructuring. Our Advisory Fees and Underwriting Fees in the aggregate accounted for 88%, 90% and 92% of our revenues, excluding Other Revenue, net, in 2023, 2022 and 2021, respectively. We expect that we will continue to rely on advisory services for a substantial portion of our revenue for the foreseeable future. Accordingly, a decline in advisory engagements, or the market for advisory services, would adversely affect our business. In addition, our Advisory professionals operate in a highly-competitive environment where typically there are no long-term contracted sources of revenue. Each revenue-generating engagement typically is separately solicited, awarded and negotiated. In addition, many businesses do not routinely engage in transactions requiring our services. As a consequence, our fee-paying engagements with many clients are not likely to be predictable and high levels of revenue in one quarter are not necessarily predictive of continued high levels of revenue in future periods. We also lose clients each year as a result of the sale or merger of a client, a change in a client's senior management, competition from other financial advisors and financial institutions and other causes. As a result, our advisory fees could decline materially due to such changes in the volume, nature and scope of our engagements.

As a financial services firm, our businesses are materially affected by conditions in the financial markets and economic conditions in the U.S. and throughout the world. Financial markets and economic conditions can be negatively impacted by many factors beyond our control, such as the inability to access credit markets, rising interest rates or inflation, terrorism, political uncertainty, supply chain disruptions, uncertainty in the U.S. federal fiscal or monetary policy and the fiscal and monetary policy of foreign governments, an evolving regulatory environment (and the timing and nature of regulatory reform), climate change, extreme weather events or natural disasters, the emergence or continuation of widespread health emergencies or pandemics, cyberattacks or campaigns, military conflicts or other geopolitical events. Unfavorable market or economic conditions, as well as volatility in the financial markets, can materially reduce the demand for our services and present challenges. Revenue generated by our Investment Banking & Equities business is related to the volume and value of the transactions in which we are involved. The majority of our bankers are focused on covering clients in the context of providing M&A services and those activities generate a substantial portion of our revenues. During periods of unfavorable market and economic conditions, including enhanced regulatory scrutiny of M&A transactions, our operating results may be adversely affected by a decrease in the volume and value of M&A transactions and increasing price competition among financial services companies seeking advisory engagements. Our clients engaging in M&A transactions often rely on access to the credit and/or capital markets to finance their transactions. The uncertainty of available credit and interest rates and the volatility of the capital markets, and the fact that we do not provide financing or otherwise commit capital to clients, can adversely affect the size, volume, timing and ability of such clients to successfully complete M&A transactions and adversely affect our Investment Banking & Equities business. In addition, our profitability would be adversely affected due to our fixed costs and the possibility that we would be unable to reduce our variable costs without reducing revenue or within a timeframe sufficient to offset any decreases in revenue relating to changes in market and economic conditions. We also seek to generate greater business from our restructuring and capital markets services and our Equities business. However, we cannot be certain that we will be able to significantly offset lower revenues from a decline in our M&A activities with increased revenues generated from restructuring and capital markets services or from our Equities business. Our restructuring services, which provide financial advice and investment banking services to companies in financial transition, as well as to creditors, shareholders and potential acquirers, our capital markets services, which provide corporations and financial sponsors with advice relating to a broad array of financing issues, and our Equities business, which provides equity research and agency securities trading for institutional investors, are smaller than our M&A advisory business and we expect that they will remain that way for the foreseeable future. Unfavorable market conditions may also lead to a reduction in revenues from our underwriting and placement agent activities, our private funds advisory and private capital markets businesses, and the demand for the research and other services provided by our Equities business could correspondingly decline.

We face various cybersecurity risks related to our businesses on a day-to-day basis. We rely heavily on financial, accounting, communication and other data processing systems to securely process, transmit, and store sensitive and confidential client information, and communicate among our locations around the world and with our staff, clients, partners, and vendors. We also depend on third-party software and programs, as well as cloud-based storage platforms as part of our operations. These systems, including the systems of third parties on whom we rely, may fail to operate properly or become disabled as a result of tampering or a breach of our network security systems or otherwise, including for reasons beyond our, or their, control. In addition, we are also exposed to fourth-party cybersecurity risk from vendors, suppliers or attackers of our third-party vendors. The increased use of mobile technologies and remote working arrangements heighten these and other operational risks. In addition, as we operate in a financial services industry, we are susceptible to attempts to gain unauthorized access of client, customer or other confidential information. We are also at risk for denial-of-service, distributed denial-of-service and/or other cyber-attacks involving the theft, dissemination and destruction of corporate information or other assets, which could result from an employee's, contractor's or other third party vendor's failure to follow data security procedures or as a result of actions by third parties, including actions by governments. Phishing attacks and email spoofing attacks are becoming more prevalent and are often used to obtain information to impersonate employees or clients in order to, among other things, direct fraudulent bank transfers or obtain valuable information. Fraudulent transfers resulting from phishing attacks or email spoofing of our employees could result in a material loss of assets, reputational harm or legal liability, and in turn materially adversely affect our business. Although cyber-attacks have not, to date, had a material impact on our operations, breaches of our, or third-party, network security systems on which we rely could involve attacks that are intended to obtain unauthorized access to and disclose our proprietary information or our client's proprietary information, destroy data or disable, degrade or sabotage our systems, often through the introduction of computer viruses, cyber-attacks and other means, and could originate from a wide variety of sources, including state actors or other unknown third parties outside the firm. There can be no assurance that we, or the third parties on whom we rely, will be able to anticipate, detect or implement effective preventative measures against frequently changing cyber threats. We expect to incur significant costs in maintaining and enhancing appropriate protections to keep pace with increasingly sophisticated methods of attack. In addition to the implementation of data security measures, we require our employees to maintain the confidentiality of the proprietary information we hold. If an employee's failure to follow proper data security procedures results in the improper release of confidential information, or our systems are otherwise compromised, do not operate properly or are disabled, we could suffer a disruption of our business, financial losses, liability to clients, regulatory sanctions and damage to our reputation. See Item 1C. "Cybersecurity" for further information regarding our cybersecurity practices, policies and procedures.