NEW YORK (Bloomberg) - Lazard Ltd., the biggest non-bank merger adviser, reported a 24 percent increase in earnings as revenue from asset management climbed to a record.Second-quarter profit rose to $65.8 million, or 48 cents a share, from $53 million, or 39 cents, a year earlier, the Bermuda-based company said in a statement. The average estimate of 11 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg was for profit of 49 cents.Lazard, run by chairman and chief executive officer Kenneth Jacobs, 52, posted a 39 percent drop in restructuring advisory revenue from last year’s second quarter as the economic recovery meant fewer troubled companies needed workout advice. Asset management’s 27 percent revenue increase and gains from advising on mergers bolstered earnings.“Restructuring activity levels continue to trend down,” Devin Ryan, an analyst with Sandler O'Neill & Partners LP in New York, said in an interview. “There are still a number of ongoing mandates that will be completed over time, which will continue to drive lumpy success fees in the future.”Lazard fell 18 cents, or 0.5 percent, to $34.52 at 4:15 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. The shares are down almost 13 percent this year.Asset management and financial advisory were the “growth engines” last quarter, chief financial officer Matthieu Bucaille said in an interview. “Restructuring continued to decrease, it’s not surprisings. We've seen that in the last quarter and it continues.”Bucaille became CFO in April after Michael Castellano, who held the post since 2001, retired. Bucaille was previously deputy CEO of Lazard Freres Banque in Paris.Lazard’s operating revenue climbed 12 percent to $491.8 million in the second quarter from the same period last year.Financial advisory operating revenue increased 1.4 percent to $249.2 million. Merger-and-acquisition and strategic-advisory operating revenue rose 17 percent to $170.6 million in the second quarter and capital markets operating revenue climbed to $30.3 million from $19.9 million.The M&A environment “is good if you look at cash on balance sheet, if you look at the fact that a lot of companies are looking for growth, sometimes outside of their home market,” Bucaille said.Global announced deal volume totaled $636.8 billion in the second quarter, a 39 percent increase from the year-earlier period, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Lazard ranked ninth among financial advisers in the first half of the year, with $131.3 billion in deals, or a 10 percent share of the market, the data show.Evercore Partners Inc. reported an eightfold increase in second-quarter profit as pro-forma net revenue in the firm's investment bank, which includes its advisory business, reached a record $112.2 million.Lazard spent $285.6 million, or 58 percent of operating revenue, on compensation expenses, compared with $262.2 million, or 60 percent, in the year-earlier period.Asset management operating revenue rose to $237.7 million in the second quarter from $187.2 million in the year-earlier period. Assets under management totaled a record $161.6 billion at June 30, compared with $123.5 billion at the same time last year.Net outflows in the second quarter were $300 million. Incentive fees fell to $6.3 million in the second quarter from $12.6 million in the year-earlier period.“Some of the products that drove some of the strong flows in recent quarters reached capacity,” Ryan at Sandler O'Neill said. “They’ll be looking for some new funds to pick up the slack going forward.”Current and former Lazard employees own 29 percent of the firm. Because their stakes can be converted into common stock, the company reports earnings as though the stakes were fully exchanged instead of treating them as minority interest.