The Investment Bank That Speaks to Women-Led Companies

We are excited to share this year-end report by Houlihan Lokey’s Women-Led; Specialized Investment Banking Services for Women-Led Companies. The Women-Led platform represents Houlihan Lokey’s commitment to creating a new norm for the way the financial services industry views female corporate leaders, which gives us the ability to have an impact on women-led businesses at all stages of their growth.

In 2022, Houlihan Lokey successfully closed 54 transactions with women-led companies around the world, representing more than $11 billion in transaction value. The tombstones below present a selection of these deals and reflect the whole-of-firm approach of Women-Led. They were managed in all areas of Houlihan Lokey’s core competencies: corporate finance, financial and valuation advisory, and financial restructuring and in every sector: business services; consumer, food, and retail; energy; financial services; healthcare; industrials; real estate, lodging, and leisure; and technology.

This year’s transactions also demonstrate how Women-Led works with private equity funds that are run by women. As more and more women have left large sponsors in recent years, they have gone on to start their own funds focused on female-led startups. With the proliferation of women-led venture funds, the growth of women-led companies, along with increasing interest in backing diverse managers, it is no surprise to see this. We expect this trend to grow in the coming years, and believe we are positioned to advise and partner with this important capital source for diverse portfolio companies. Strengthening our thesis that this is a large and growing market, in 2022, we met with 38 female CEOs, some of whom were in seed-round stages or reached unicorn status. Advising companies founded and run by women is not new for Houlihan Lokey, however, we have been working with iconic brands like Tate’s Bake Shop for years.

With the return of in-person conferences, Houlihan Lokey featured female founders and CEOS at two of our events.

Our Global Technology Conference on October 12 featured Amanda Hesser, Founder/Co-CEO of Food52; Allison Robinson, Founder/CEO of The Mom Project; Liz Sands, CEO of Great Bowery; Anne Solmssen, Co-Founder/CTO of Ethena; and Isabel Rafferty Zavala, Founder/CEO of Canela Media. Susan Desmond-Hellmann, former Gates Foundation CEO, was the featured keynote speaker.

Our Financial Services Conference on October 26 featured Jess Levin Conroy, CEO of Carats & Cake; Catherine Prentke English, Co-Founder of Harness Wealth; Margaret J. Hartigan, CEO of Marstone, Inc.; and Kelly Uphoff, CTO of Tala. Betsy Cohen, Chairman of Cohen Circle, was the featured keynote speaker.

Many women at Houlihan Lokey were featured in the media and recognized for their leadership in investment banking and private equity. We are proud to share that several discussed the current landscape for sales of privately held companies.

We launched The View in 2021 to provide women with information about issues they will need to know before they are sitting with investors or bankers and wished they had learned it before. The series will continue in 2023 with Everything You Need to Know About Why Women Are Leading the Disruption in Healthcare as well as Everything You Want To Know About the New Industrial Revolution—How Corporates and Private Equity Are Leading the Change. Additional details will be shared in future quarterly updates.

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Specialized investment banking advisory for women-led companies

Houlihan Lokey makes a dedicated effort to work with women-led companies. From 2020 to 2022, we successfully closed 122 transactions representing more than $20 billion in transaction value—nearly 55 of them in 2022 alone—across the globe. We advise female founders and CEOs building new enterprises as well as managing more mature companies in the belief that the right bank can drive a smoother process and lead to better outcomes.

About Houlihan Lokey

Houlihan Lokey (NYSE:HLI) is a global investment bank with expertise in mergers and acquisitions, capital markets, financial restructuring, and financial and valuation advisory. The firm serves corporations, institutions, and governments worldwide with offices in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, and the Asia-Pacific region. Independent advice and intellectual rigor are hallmarks of the firm’s commitment to client success across its advisory services. Houlihan Lokey is the No. 1 investment bank for global M&A transactions under $1 billion, the No. 1 M&A advisor for the past eight consecutive years in the U.S., the No. 1 global restructuring advisor for the past nine consecutive years, and the No. 1 global M&A fairness opinion advisor over the past 25 years, all based on number of transactions and according to data provided by Refinitiv.