Lazard’s most-palpable strengths lie in its key equity franchises. The firm is best known for its global listed infrastructure expertise and, to a lesser extent, emerging-markets and international equities. Smaller strategies fill out the lineup, but Lazard generally sticks to its well-defined wheelhouse of stock investing in less-traversed universes. Overall, Lazard’s investment team is stable and well-tenured. A team orientation produces multiple managers on most strategies, easing key-person risk, and a career-analyst track has aided stability.
Against that backdrop, Lazard is seeing some change. Former Lazard Ltd CFO Evan Russo became the firm’s CEO in June 2022, transitioning from longtime leader Ashish Bhutani, but the firm maintains the same level of autonomy. With a mostly institutional clientele—comprising roughly 70% of the firm’s USD 194 billion in assets under management as of March 2023—Lazard continues to focus on its retail presence. Some efforts to expand beyond core strategies in recent years, either through investment team lift-outs or extension strategies, haven’t always hit the mark; in fact, Lazard recently announced it is pulling the plug on two funds. The firm’s (and industry’s) intent on ensuring the business is rightsized for the environment is also a point to watch.