LAZARD LT : Lazard Hires Structured Credit Advisory Team [PDF]

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LAZARD HIRES STRUCTURED CREDIT ADVISORY TEAM- Broadens Capital Structure Advisory Business -

LONDON, 9 June 2011 – Lazard Ltd (NYSE:LAZ) today announced the hire of an experienced team of senior credit professionals to broaden the firm’s Capital Structure Advisory business, effective immediately.

Led in Europe by Managing Director Alan Patterson, the Structured Credit Advisory team brings a broad range of complementary skills in structured credit products and credit derivatives, including capital and balance sheet analytics, structuring, syndication, placement, valuation and portfolio management. The team, based in London, will advise a broad range of institutions across Europe, including banks, pension funds, insurance companies, asset managers and hedge funds, as well as central banks and governments.

William Rucker, CEO of Lazard London, commented: “We are uniquely positioned to advise clients in this area. Lazard is the only independent advisor with world-class capabilities in analyzing and restructuring all manner of balance sheet issues for clients, and this is a natural extension to the suite of services we offer. The team will work alongside our sector professionals in FIG and Real Estate, where we see this business adding tremendous benefit to our clients, and will complement our Restructuring and Debt Advisory business. ”

Alan Patterson, Managing Director of Structured Credit Advisory, commented: “Many of the holders in the structured credit market are not the natural owners of such assets and are seeking independent advice. The European ABS market alone has over €2trn of placed and retained assets, of which €100bn are European CMBS deals maturing before 2014. There are also over €500bn of European commercial real estate loans maturing in the same time period. We look forward to integrating our capabilities and relationships into the Lazard network.”

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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Structured Credit Advisory Team BiographiesAlan Patterson - Managing Director

Mr Patterson joined Amias Berman in 2009. He qualified as a Chartered Accountant before beginning his investment banking career in the FIG team at Merrill Lynch in 1989. He joined the DCM team at Salomon Brothers in 1992 and became Head of Citigroup's Financial Institutions Capital Markets business in 1999. In 2006, he established and led Citigroup’s Capital Management Strategy Group, providing balance sheet advice to financial institutions, as well as analytic and transaction support..

Andrew Feachem – Director

Prior to joining Amias Berman in 2009, Mr Feachem spent eight years at ABN AMRO, where latterly he ran the European credit derivatives origination and syndication team. He has spent over 12 years structuring and marketing a broad spectrum of complex derivative products.

Juan Carlos Martorell – Director

Mr Martorell joined Amias Berman in 2009. Prior to this, he spent four years at ABN AMRO where he was responsible for structuring and marketing structured credit investments and solutions. Mr Martorell was formerly European product manager of the cash and synthetic CDO and SIV rating business at Standard & Poor’s.

Aman Panaech – Director

Prior to joining Amias Berman in 2009, Mr Panaech was a portfolio manager at Countrywide Alternative Investments, managing six ABS CDOs, a hedge fund and performed portfolio consulting on over $14bn of ABS to clients. He was previously a portfolio manager at ST Asset Management and Lazard Asset Management.

Abror Ismailov – Vice President

Mr Ismailov joins from Union Investment where he was a senior portfolio manager. Previously, he was a portfolio manager at Cambridge Place Investment Management for six years, overseeing two Pan- European ABS CDOs, co-managing $3.6bn of ABS funds and investments, and performing advisory work on structured finance portfolios. He started his career at State Street and Deutsche Bank.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

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This press release contains “forward-looking statements.” In some cases, you can identify these statements by forward-looking words such as “may”, “might”, “will”, “should”, “expect”, “plan”, “anticipate”, “believe”, “estimate”, “predict”, “potential” or “continue”, and the negative of these terms and other comparable terminology. These forward-looking statements are not historical facts but instead represent only our belief regarding future results, many of which, by their nature, are inherently uncertain and outside of our control. There are important factors that could cause our actual results, level of activity, performance or achievements to differ materially from the results, level of activity, performance or achievements expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements.

These factors include, but are not limited to, those discussed in our Annual Report on Form 10-K under Item 1A “Risk Factors,” and also disclosed from time to time in reports on Forms 10-Q and 8-K including the following:

• A decline in general economic conditions or the global financial markets;

• Losses caused by financial or other problems experienced by third parties;

• Losses due to unidentified or unanticipated risks;

• A lack of liquidity, i.e., ready access to funds, for use in our businesses; and

• Competitive pressure.

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