Houston Restructuring Exit Ops
Would working at a Houston bank with restructuring deal flow make you a competitive candidate for typical restructuring-based exit ops (i.e. distressed debt investing)? Especially within Dallas?
A lot of people emphasize that Houston banks only place into O&G related exits. During recruiting, I had this beaten into my head. However, restructuring seems like it would be the exception to me because the skills you gain when restructuring companies, as far as I can tell, aren't really industry specific.
Beyond that, it seems like energy would be a really good industry for restructuring experience, since there are always a ton of bankruptcies whenever commodity prices fall. And with a market downturn looming, it seems like they are poised to fall right as I'm entering the workforce. Banks with restructuring in Houston should be getting a lot of restructuring deal flow in the next few years.
If you also factor in the fact that Houston is far closer to Dallas than NYC or any other finance hub, it seems like doing restructuring at a Houston bank would be a natural fit for distressed investing exits in Dallas.
Am I off here? My logic seems pretty sound to me, but I haven't heard of anyone doing distressed investing after doing banking in Houston, and I don't want to work my ass off as an analyst to find out that Houston bankers have a hard time placing into distressed investing roles.
Interested as well.
Have not heard of anybody leaving Lazard Houston, no. I'm not even sure if the Houston office handles much of the restructuring or if it's handed off mostly to NYC. But I could be wrong.
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I haven't heard about any notable placements coming out of LAZ HOU either. If you are really serious about RX and are really set on being in Houston, I would gun pretty hard for Evercore (they touch on a little bit of everything). Otherwise, I would probably look at biting the bullet and targeting generalist roles across RX IBD such as with PJT, Rothschild, GHL, LAZ, etc in NYC.
Just curious why you're thinking a market downturn is looming...
I mean the fact that we’re nearing the end of the credit cycle is relatively well known with economists and industry professionals expecting a downturn in mid to late 2019. Given the increasing amounts of leverage, cov-lite loans in the market, rising floating rates, the amount of highly levered companies that will be able to service their debt will be increasingly less which is when you will see an opportunity for distressed/special situations
bump
HL has a restructuring team in Dallas so maybe look into that. Think Stephens has a small restructuring team in Dallas as well that they bought. No idea if either are hiring
In terms of RX exposure, Moelis guys/gals are getting the best experience since everything is done in-house and they even have a RX MD in the Houston office. Evercore is probably still the best EB right now (incoming MS), but Moelis is killing it from a pure RX standpoint
Agree with this. Evercore and Moelis getting wrecked right now. Haven't heard much about LAZ/HL but I'd assume they're busy too.
If recruiting in Houston, as someone at a BB right now, I'd caution folks to stick to EBs if possible.
Thoughts on TPH from a restructuring perspective?
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