Financial and Valuation Advisory (FVA)

Over the past 40 years, Houlihan Lokey has established one of the largest worldwide financial and valuation advisory practices. Our transaction expertise and leadership in the field of valuation inspire confidence in the financial executives, boards of directors, special committees, retained counsel, investors, and business owners we serve. In 2017, Thomson Reuters ranked us the No. 1 U.S. M&A fairness opinion advisor over the past 20 years.

Our stability, integrity, technical leadership, and global capabilities make us a trusted advisor for clients worldwide, across a wide range of services, including Transaction Opinions, Transaction Advisory Services, Corporate Valuation Advisory Services, Portfolio Valuation & Fund Advisory Services, Real Estate Valuation & Advisory Services, Dispute Resolution Consulting, and Tech+IP Advisory.

Scope

We offer a unique opportunity to work on a wealth of projects that provide exposure to various financial and valuation advisory challenges, including the valuation of complex businesses, securities, and transaction structures. As an Associate in our Portfolio Valuation Practice, you will play a key role on our engagement teams, which typically comprise at least one Managing Director, Vice President, Associate and one or more Financial Analysts.  Your primary activities will include valuing debt, equity and structured securities; presenting analyses and conclusions internally to review committees and externally to the senior management and boards of directors of clients and to fiduciaries; designing and drafting client deliverables; constructing and reviewing valuation and other financial models; performing financial statement, industry and other quantitative and qualitative assessments; attending due diligence meetings; communicating with client personnel; assisting with sales and marketing initiatives; and directing the efforts of financial analysts.

Responsibilities

• Supporting FVA portfolio valuation teams, which provide valuations of illiquid debt and equity securities held by hedge funds, private equity funds, and business development companies in connection with fair value reporting of the funds’ assets to investors
• Assisting in the preparation of fee proposals to clients, including scoping discussions, pitch materials, and internal engagement pricing committee memoranda;
• Participating in deal team brainstorming discussions, preparing information request lists, designing and drafting client deliverables
• Reviewing client investment memoranda, board of directors presentations, specific debt and equity agreements, and financial models to develop an understanding of the company or securities being analyzed
• Directing the efforts of financial analysts and checking their work product to ensure the delivery of an accurate and thorough work product within the required timeframe
• Reviewing and compiling published financial information, such as public company filings, press releases, reports from published research analysts, and Bloomberg data across a wide range of industries and sectors
• Assisting in the preparation of pitch materials and information request lists to clients
• Participating in telephonic and in-person due diligence meetings/discussions, communicating with clients and responding to auditor questions regarding valuation analyses prepared by Houlihan Lokey
• Identifying relevant comparable public companies and M&A transactions within parameters established by FVA project teams, based upon information services such as S&P Capital IQ and Bloomberg, along with knowledge of the appropriate Standard Industrial Classification and other methods, as appropriate
• Researching and providing information on (a) general economic conditions, (b) industry-specific conditions and trends, (c) acquisitions and divestitures within specific industries, and (d) various investment attributes of publicly traded and privately held securities
• Compiling statistical summaries of companies’ financial information, developing and computing financial ratios, and presenting the analyses in an organized manner and/or using our standard formats and presentations
• Constructing and reviewing valuation and other financial analyses, including the guideline public companies, guideline precedent transactions, and discounted cash flow analyses, using Houlihan Lokey proprietary models;
• Presenting valuation analyses and conclusions internally to review committees, externally to our clients’ senior management and boards of directors, and to fiduciaries
• Performing financial statement analysis and other quantitative and qualitative assessments
• Assist in presenting valuation analyses and conclusions internally to review committees
• Performing other ad-hoc research, analytics, and support for the FVA project teams as required
• Coordinating with internal administrative support teams to prepare engagement invoices, working paper files, and other compliance/end-of-engagement close out procedures
• Participating in discussions with in-house and outside legal counsel as required
• Assisting with marketing initiatives for prospective and existing clients.

The ideal candidate may have some of the following qualifications :

• Bachelor’s degree (in Finance a plus)
• Minimum of four years of work experience at an accounting firm (in the valuation group) or a valuation firm
• Strong analytical abilities
• Excellent understanding of financial statements analysis with the ability to work through key assumptions, implicit caveats, and limitations
• A fundamental understanding of financial valuation theory, methodologies, and applications
• Strong knowledge of Excel modeling
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills
• Demonstrated ability to work cooperatively with team members
• Ability to work independently in a fast-paced environment
• An exceptional work ethic
• Big Four, Independent Valuation Consultants, and/or transaction advisory services experience is a plus

Equal Opportunity Employer M/F/D/V