GlobalData mentioned Houlihan Lokey is the highest M&A advisor by quantity to date this 12 months.
The LA-based funding financial institution employed senior dealmakers and expanded its ranks as rivals held again.
CEO Scott Adelson says “the flywheel is catching,” explaining how the financial institution is positioning itself.
Scott Adelson did not count on to be sitting on this seat proper now.
“I am in all probability an unintended funding banker,” the CEO of Houlihan Lokey — which has develop into certainly one of Wall Road’s busiest funding banks by deal quantity — mentioned in an interview with Enterprise Insider in September.
After incomes an MBA from the College of Chicago Sales space Faculty of Enterprise, Adelson began a small enterprise and anticipated to spend his profession constructing corporations, not advising them. However when he joined a roughly 30-person valuation store in Los Angeles in 1987, he thought he was making only a temporary cease on the planet of excessive finance.
4 many years later, and he is nonetheless there — and now sits on the helm of the financial institution, having been named to the chief govt function final 12 months, and beforehand serving as copresident and international cohead of company finance.
Houlihan has come a great distance from its roots because the restructuring and chapter professional shoppers considered when a liquidity panic was afoot. This 12 months, Houlihan labored with monetary sponsor shoppers like Carlyle and suggested the hair care model Colour Wow on its sale to L’Oréal — a part of the 240 transactions it dealt with by means of the third quarter, in keeping with GlobalData league tables reviewed by Enterprise Insider.
To make certain, different bulge-bracket banks deal with bigger company mergers or take-privates and have surpassed Houlihan within the transaction worth they work on; nevertheless, within the middle-market enviornment — offers typically valued at round $1 billion and below — the agency has drawn vital deal movement.
Throughout its most up-to-date earnings disclosure this week — the financial institution’s second quarter of the 2026 fiscal 12 months — Houlihan introduced that it generated revenues of $659 million, 15% greater than the identical quarter final 12 months. Company finance revenues of practically $439 million have been about 17% greater than the identical interval final 12 months; whereas monetary and valuation advisory introduced in $87 million, up virtually 10%.
“Capital markets are extensive open and capital is plentiful,” Adelson mentioned, in keeping with an earnings name transcript. “All this has elevated total confidence within the dealmaking urge for food.”
Adelson has been predicting the rebound for months. After a sluggish few years, dealmaking lastly seems to have returned in 2025 due to a steadier charge surroundings, lighter regulation, and a wave of optimism about AI and expertise. Adelson says the agency’s prepared, pointing to a technique that is expanded its ranks whereas others have retreated from hiring and deepened its sector-specific protection.
“The flywheel is catching,” he instructed Enterprise Insider, “and we’re prepared for it.”
Whereas many massive banks have remained cautious about rising staffing ranges in latest months, not sure how expertise or different effectivity pushes will influence their compensation budgets, Houlihan has taken the alternative method.
Since early September, it is added six managing administrators from corporations like UBS and Capital One. They’ve joined Houlihan groups within the US and Europe, broadening the financial institution’s attain in healthcare finance, mortgage expertise, IT companies, non-public fairness protection, and capital options.
Scott Adelson, CEO of Houlihan Lokey, instructed Enterprise Insider that his agency is increasing its capital options crew and hiring in area of interest subsectors of dealmaking.Courtesy of Houlihan Lokey
Adelson mentioned one development space of continued funding is the agency’s capital options group, which advises shoppers on financings and balance-sheet methods. As of mid-2025, the agency’s total head depend was practically 2,700 folks, of which practically 350 have been managing administrators.
The hiring spree helps a broader effort to deepen Houlihan’s business protection. “To have the ability to rent by means of the cycles, to by no means actually have any layoffs in an business that has traditionally been identified for increasing and contracting like an accordion,” Adelson mentioned, has introduced “large” stability to the crew.
Now, the agency has about 200 devoted business sectors, he mentioned; every is led by senior bankers who’re specialists in numerous fields. That is greater than double its protection from a decade in the past.
Inside company finance, the capital options group operates as certainly one of two engines alongside M&A. It helps corporations and buyers increase non-public capital, refinance debt, or handle their steadiness sheets and has dealt with greater than 100 transactions this 12 months, in keeping with the corporate.
One other a part of Houlihan’s growth technique has come by means of small, focused acquisitions of boutique funding banks. Since 2020, it has acquired eight particular person companies.
In 2024, the agency purchased Waller Helms Advisors, a Chicago-based boutique centered on insurance coverage and wealth administration. The deal added 50 folks to the monetary companies group, together with 13 managing administrators, in keeping with the corporate’s announcement. Later that 12 months, it acquired Prytania Options, a London agency that builds analytics software program utilized in portfolio valuation and fund-advisory work — an instance of how Houlihan is attempting to combine expertise inside its core enterprise.
Adelson mentioned the agency’s method to M&A prioritizes cultural synergy. “We have walked away from offers that made large financial sense,” he mentioned, as a result of they weren’t a match culturally. And he nonetheless considers his entrée into banking an accident.
“I joined a very small agency and realized that I preferred being the dumbest individual within the room somewhat than the neatest,” he mentioned, recalling Houlihan’s early days. Now, he tends to see himself as extra of a builder than a banker — a mindset which he is bringing to the agency’s subsequent chapter.
“I’m very a lot a ‘looking-forward’ individual — what’s subsequent, what is the plan?” he mentioned. “We’re nowhere close to what we’re able to reaching.”
