NEW YORK (Reuters) — Merger advisory firm Lazard Ltd. reported a 50 percent increase in fourth-quarter earnings yesterday, beating expectations with its best merger and acquisition results in six years.Earnings rose to $85.8 million, or 78 cents a share, from $57.3 million, or 57 cents, a year earlier. Net revenue rose 29 percent to $472.9 million.

Analysts, on average, had expected earnings of 62 cents a share on revenue of $416 million, according to Reuters Estimates.

“While everyone knows M&A has been strong, these numbers came in better than the Street expected,” said Adam Compton, an analyst and fund manager at RCM Global Investors in San Francisco.

Compton attributed much of Lazard’s out-performance to strength in its asset management business, which has been turned around after years of poor results.

“People owned the stock for the exposure to the M&A cycle and the strength there, but they showed strength on the asset management side as well.”

Lazard’s reported earnings assume the full exchange into common stock of ownership interests held by the firm’s senior partners. The 159-year-old firm went public in May 2005, and is run by chief executive and veteran deal maker Bruce Wasserstein.

The fourth-quarter results reflect a surge in completed mergers and acquisitions as industry-wide M&A activity soared to a record. Lazard also bounced back from the third quarter, when a number of pending deals did not close.

M&A revenue for the fourth quarter rose 35 percent from a year earlier to $247.5 million, the highest level since the end of 2000.

Lazard’s restructuring revenue, however, fell 11 percent to $20.4 million as default rates remained near record lows.