Boutique financial advisory firm Greenhill & Co posted better-than-expected second-quarter earnings on Sunday, rushing the results out after reports on departures at the firm hit the company's stock.

Greenhill shares closed down more than 12 percent at $46.50 on Friday in response to the departure of Tim George, a member of the firm's management committee. The firm has also lost two other managing directors since June.

A Greenhill spokesman said the departures this year have had no measurable impact on its current assignments, and that it would be wrong to assume that the departures would have a meaningful impact on earnings.

Greenhill said it earned $21.5 million, or 69 cents a share, in the quarter, up from $17.6 million, or 57 cents a share, a year earlier. The results had been expected to be released later this week.

Analysts, on average, had expected earnings of 33 cents a share, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Revenue rose 9 percent to $90.8 million in the quarter, driven by a 38 percent surge in revenue from the firm's financial advisory activities.

The company founded by Robert Greenhill, the former president of Morgan Stanley and former chairman and chief executive of Smith Barney, said deals that closed in the second quarter -- like the sale of Alcon Inc to Novartis AG -- helped its results.

The company is also advising AT&T on its $39 billion bid for T-Mobile.

We are seeing a significant rebound in North American activity, continued strength in Australia and the beginnings of a rebound from an extended difficult period in Europe, Chairman Robert Greenhill said in a statement.

While our current level of productivity remains far below what we achieved historically, we believe we are well positioned to return to our historic level of productivity as and when transaction activity continues to rebound.

(Reporting by Michael Erman; Editing by Richard Chang)

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