NEW YORK (Bloomberg) — Shares of Bermuda-based Lazard Ltd, the largest independent mergers-and-acquisitions adviser by market value, shot up yesterday after it reported third-quarter profit that beat analysts’ estimates as fees from advising on M&A climbed.

Net income rose to $399 million, or $2.99 a share, from $89 million, or 67 cents, a year earlier, the firm said yesterday in a statement. Earnings adjusted for one-time items were 93 cents a share, surpassing the 90-cent estimate of 11 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.

After the morning announcement, Lazard shares rose 5.3 per cent to close on $47.66 in New York.

Lazard ranks seventh among merger advisers this year, a market that’s on pace to reach a record globally. The firm’s restructuring work may pick up if companies have a harder time finding access to financing amid market volatility, according to Devin Ryan, an analyst at JMP Securities. Lazard also derives about half its revenue from asset management, and may have been hurt by the 6.9 percent decline in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index in the third quarter.

“The current momentum has been quite strong, and Lazard’s backlog has been building at a pace we haven’t seen since the financial crisis,” Ryan said by phone before earnings were released. “There’s still some questions around whether the volatility that we saw in the middle and late summer will reverberate or have any impact on activity levels moving forward.”