Lazard Ltd., the merger-advisory business led by Bruce Wasserstein, agreed to buy Goldsmith Agio Helms & Lynner LLC to gain contacts with mid-sized private companies.

The purchase will be made with a combination of cash and stock, New York-based Lazard said yesterday in a statement. The price for the company, which employs about 90 bankers in Minneapolis, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York and Shanghai, wasn't disclosed.

Lazard's fees for advising companies grew at a slower pace in the first quarter than its revenue from fund management, and the firm's earnings fell short of analysts' estimates. Goldsmith Agio Helms specialises in advising closely held companies worth between $50 million and $500 million and typically owned by private-equity firms.

"This is a very attractive marketplace from an advisory standpoint," Kenneth Jacobs, Lazard's chief executive officer for North America, said in an interview. "No one competes in it with the resources and expertise we will bring to it."

Jacobs declined to say how much Lazard is paying or how much revenue or profit Goldsmith Agio Helms generates.