Houlihan Lokey
Overview
Introduction
Houlihan Lokey has expertise in mergers and acquisitions, capital markets, restructuring, and financial and valuation advisory. Its interns get live deal experience and top-notch training, and its full-time analysts get a ton of responsibility, the ability to pave their own paths, and schedule flexibility. The firm has an entrepreneurial culture and focuses on making sure its people maintain a healthy work/life balance.
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Vault Verdict
Houlihan Lokey is ideally looking for smart, motivated, positive, personable candidates with strong communication and technical skills. The firm runs a valuable internship program for students, providing its interns with significant live deal experience and access to senior bankers and clients. For its full-time junior professionals, Houlihan Lokey offers numerous growth and development opportunities, including a very strong training program, early responsibility, a lot of live deal experience, clear promotion paths, an emphasis on promoting from within, and excellent formal and informal mentoring.
Due to the large number of live deals and lean teams, junior bankers can work long hours and work/life balance can be hard to achieve. However, the firm’s culture is c...
About the Company
Founded in 1972, investment banking firm Houlihan Lokey employs more than 2,700 people worldwide. Although it’s best known as an advisor to mid-cap companies and a restructuring house, Houlihan Lokey also serves large public corporations and small private companies. On August 13, 2015, the firm became a public company, listing on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol HLI.
Underscoring its prowess in the deal markets, Houlihan Lokey is currently ranked No. 1 in announced M&A transactions for all global transactions, No. 1 globally in restructuring, and the No. 1 M&A fairness opinion advisor over the past 25 years, according to LSEG (formerly Refinitiv).
Led by CEO Scott Adelson, Houlihan Lokey operates through three main business lines: corporate finance (comprising mergers ...
Employee Reviews
- “Culturally, our office encourages associates and analysts to be engaged outside of work and generally attempts to limit unnecessary work outside of normal ours (i.e., nights and weekends). Team is supportive of taking vacation (i.e., planning property to minimize disruption) and makes a concerted effort to avoid burnout in junior team. Overall, taking into account the demands of the job, the quality of life is pretty good, and the team tries to be cognizant of commitments outside of the office (to the extent practicable). Just given the nature of the job, there is unpredictability and are times where workload and hours are significant, which can occasionally be disruptive.”
- “Our bankers are on lots of live deals, and we work on lean teams. The tradeoff of substantive experience and client interaction is a reduced ability to take time off. Nobody begrudges you for taking vacations or expects you to stay in the office until midnight, but the nature of the projects and our staffing model does not always support work/life balance. However, the culture is upbeat and approachable, so this is a good place to spend a lot of hours. People here don’t take out their stress on their colleagues and generally don’t take themselves too seriously.”
- “Very collegial culture—seniors and juniors are all in the trenches pushing forward on deals and client development. Small deal teams deliver high level of ownership. Various initiatives deployed to improve quality of life.”
- “There is an unlimited vacation policy, so it is confusing how much one can really take. I personally had no issues on my vacation when I took mine. Hours are very variable. Sometimes I can work 80 or more, sometimes it's less. WFH policy is good for my group—no big deal if you work from home. Everything culture related is going to be group dependent. It differs in every group.”
Getting Hired Here
- “Houlihan Lokey has a very rigorous interview process, involving multiple rounds of screening involving technical/case questions, followed by a Super Day involving a live case study and written accounting exam. We focus on technical aptitude as well as fit. The ideal candidate is one who has both the technical knowledge needed to work on complex analyses in a quick and organized manner as well as the fit, personality, and emotional intelligence to handle themselves professionally in front of clients and with colleagues.”
- “Analysts and associates are highly involved in the hiring process. We are seeking someone who is not only smart and interested in banking but also an interesting person and someone would be a positive contribution to the office.”
- “We are looking for someone with prior banking/finance experience so that they can process complex information quickly and have strong modeling skills, great communication skills, and a good attitude that makes for a good bullpen culture.”
- “We try to look for good people with technical qualifications. We look for people who will fit in with the existing group.”
Perks & Benefits