Houlihan Lokey Exit Opps

HLHZ is not strictly for restructuring. As far as M&A activity is concerned: They actually lead the market in number of middle market transactions valued from 100 - 200 mm from 1/1/05 - 6/27/07 with 31 deals. UBS is second with 22, and Citi is third with 16.

As far as deals 200 - 500 mm, they are less dominant but still in the top 10 (9th to be exact with 20 deals)

HLHZ is good at what they do, and that is dominate the lower end of the MM.

i did 2 years as an analyst at houli and can tell you i barely touched restructuring. restructuring is a dedicated group, and unless you are assigned there, you actually do not spend much time there at all.

having said that, your experience will still be slightly different because a) houli does not do equity deals and b) you will instead work on a good deal of valuation and fairness opinion work, which will give you some somewhat extraordinary cash flow modeling skills, but often at the expense of leverage buyout modeling skills

From what I've ever heard, it really depends on what group you are in. Restructuring and ADG both give solid experience which can take you places.

if you're gonna do restructuring, why not aim for blackstone (which handled the enron bankruptcy) instead of some third tier shop like houlihokey.

As far as I know, HLHZ still doesn't do underwriting. That said, they are well-known for providing fairness opinions.

Basically, certain groups at HLHZ have good reps, others do not. But from what I gather, fairness opinions are handled by a division outside of M&A and Restructuring altogether. I believe it's called FAS (Financial Advisory Services) or something along those lines.

If you work in a solid group (ADG, Restructuring, Financial Sponsors) you will have a good shot at middle market PE and the like. People can come in here and hate all they want, but the fact is is that HLHZ is a very strong MM shop with strengths and weaknesses.

i believe hlhz was retained by the Paris group to help restructure the iraqi debt.

Montecarlo, do your research before just spouting off. While Blackstone worked on the debtor side of the Enron deal - HL handled the creditor side. Also, the restructuring group has worked on some if the largest bankruptcies in U.S. history including WorldCom, Tyco, Global Crossing, Delphi, Refco, Delta, Adelphia, etc. and is widely considered one of the top restructuring houses in the world.

aver, let me guess, you work at houli?

Guilty.... But, what is the point in doing the research if I cannot use it to enlighten the ibankingoasis community? However, I am not an employee of HLHZ, so it was actually not from a pitchbook but rather a bit of research I put together for my group head.

Exit opps arnt good. BB is better, or if you like the boutique feel - jump to a bank where you can put bigger/better deals on your resume

Just some data. I know a guy who worked in restructuring at HLHZ. He lateraled to a BB after one year and joined an industry group. Had nothing bad to say about HLHZ and pointed out that the restructuring experience was amazingly valuable. He left because he thought he needed the bulge experience and some "$___B" vs. "$_00M" on his resume.

Earlier this year Goldman announced an interest in the MM space. Lazard bought Goldsmith. UBS and Citi do more worldwideMM (at 100m, 200m, and 500m) than any other bank.

Houlihan is number one in US MM M&A at 100m and 200m (UBS and Lazard are a close second and third) but falls to 7th place at the 500m mark. The top players for the first 3Qs of 2007 in that category were CS, GS, UBS, LEH, JPM and C.

source: Oct 10 Thomson M&A report - http://www.thomson.com/pdf/financial/league_table/ma/237992/3Q07_MA_Glo…