Is HL Done For? Q Earnings Were Brutal
Just read HL’s latest earnings and they were pretty rough.
* Total revenue: $511M vs. $605M YoY (-16%)
* Net income: $78M vs. $98M (-20%)
* Corporate Finance revenue: $303M vs. $398M (-24%)
* CF segment profit: $89M vs. $127M (-30%)
What really stood out is that closed CF transactions actually increased slightly (127 vs. 125), but revenue still fell 24% because average fees collapsed. Management said it was due to “transaction mix” and doesn’t represent a trend, but that’s a pretty massive decline to chalk up to mix alone.
Is HL losing share on larger mandates, or is this just one ugly quarter?
Would love to hear from anyone in HL Corporate Finance. Was this just bad timing on deal closings, lower fee realization, or is something else going on internally?
I was not in CF, but during my time there the common complaint was that HL CF would take any deal no matter the size, and grind their juniors on a 10mm EBITDA sellside where they would put lipstick on a pig and make it 35 on CIMs. They also had a structure of hiring a bunch of external MDs who were very hit or miss on quality and had a weird shift from cultivating to neglecting junior promotions, with timelines looking like 3.5 yr AN, 4 yr ASO, VP->SVP->D in the 2010s onwards.
This may have benefitted HL in the past but it looks like the continual underinvestment in juniors (beyond lunch stipend) has caused a situation where many lateral MDs are useless check clippers, all competent juniors leave compared to 10 years ago when MDs were getting homegrown and IC continuously reaches further down market to collect whatever fee they can.
That being said, the earnings call did say that they have record backlog and larger deals were disproportionately delayed. Q4 26 also had a similar trend of higher deals and lower fees but this isn't a freak the fuck out moment until we see at least a year of the same trend
I’m going to challenge you—what do you mean by “investing in juniors”? In my mind, having exceptional seniors is what makes a great junior banker—how else would juniors be learning?
beyond that largely agree—you really don’t want to be in covg at HL; best teams are RX/CS
Think that certain coverage teams at HL are not bad experiences as they certainly punch above their weight
When you make the junior take 7-8 years to get past ASO level, the only ones who are going to stay are the ones who couldn't find a different job.
Plenty of checked out VPs-Directors that never interact with juniors at all. Agree that exceptional seniors is the most important factor but when they hire a bunch of dud lateral MDs that's not happening.
Have also heard interns in multiple diff groups say no one bothered coming in the Friday of internship end, and that they said goodbye to only a couple analysts/associates while the rest of team barely acknowledged they were leaving. Many people there show more interest in the snack drawer than in helping each other out.
pls see RX/CS comment thx
FWIW, promotion timeline has been cut down and is now market with other banks timelines
What kind of retarded post is this based off one quarters earning report
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