LAZARD LT : Lazard Hires Gary D. Howe as Senior Banker in Financial Institutions Advisory Group

Lazard Ltd (NYSE: LAZ) announced today that Gary D. Howe will join the firm as a Managing Director and head of Financial Institutions Group (FIG) advisory, North America, effective immediately. Mr. Howe, based in New York, was previously Co-Head of FIG Americas at UBS.

"Gary Howe has been involved in many of the largest, and most important strategic transactions and capital raisings in the financial institutions sector in the past decade," said Gary Parr, Vice Chairman of Lazard. "The demand for financial institutions expertise by clients across geographies and sectors has continued to grow throughout the economic crisis and recovery. Gary will bring complementary expertise and experience to our already strong financial institutions team in North America."

Mr. Howe joined UBS in 2005 after nine years at Credit Suisse First Boston. He has worked on a wide range of strategic financial institution transactions, including mergers and acquisitions, capital raisings and restructurings. A native of South Africa, Mr. Howe received a Bachelor's Degree of Commerce (Honours) from the University of Cape Town and his M.B.A., with distinction, and as a Palmer Scholar, from The Wharton Graduate School at the University of Pennsylvania.

Lazard's Financial Institutions Group has recently advised Mitsubishi UFJ on the$7.8 billion exchange of its convertible preferred stock in Morgan Stanley into common stock; RBS on the £1.4bn sale of a portfolio of UK commercial real estate loans to Blackstone; Carlyle on the £1bn acquisition of the RAC from Aviva; Western Union on the £606m acquisition of Travelex Global Business Payments; the Hellenic Republic on its holdings in the Greek banking system; Caja Madrid on the creation of Bankia through the integration of seven Spanish savings banks and the current IPO process; the IPO of Apollo Global Management; U.S. Bancorp on its strategic alliance with Nuveen Investments; and Wilmington Trust on its merger with M&T Bank Corporation.

About Lazard

Lazard, one of the world's preeminent financial advisory and asset management firms, operates from 42 cities across 27 countries in North America, Europe, Asia, Australia, Central and South America. With origins dating back to 1848, the firm provides advice on mergers and acquisitions, strategic matters, restructuring and capital structure, capital raising and corporate finance, as well as asset management services to corporations, partnerships, institutions, governments and individuals. For more information on Lazard, please visit www.lazard.com.

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