Houlihan Lokey announced that Walid Khiari has joined the firm as a Managing Director in the TMT Group to cover software companies. He is based in San Francisco.
Khiari joins from Rothschild & Co., where he was a Managing Director in the global technology investment banking group. While there, he successfully helped launch its investment banking practice in Silicon Valley, building a 10-person team and advising on a broad range of transactions in the enterprise software and e-commerce sectors, among others. Prior to Rothschild & Co., Khiari was a Director in Credit Suisse’s technology group in San Francisco, providing M&A and capital-raising advice to clients across the enterprise software ecosystem.
“To borrow from Marc Andreessen, software continues to ‘eat the world,’ particularly as the impact of the pandemic both highlights and accelerates the ongoing trend of digitization across all facets of our economy and society,” said Rob Louv, Global Co-Head of Houlihan Lokey’s TMT Group. “Walid’s market knowledge and transaction expertise in the software space is nothing less than outstanding, and I am confident that his advice and guidance will be tremendously valuable to our clients as this trend continues.”
“Houlihan Lokey’s collaborative culture, unmatched depth of private equity relationships, and dominance in the mid-cap segment of the M&A markets, where the heart of the economy beats loudest and where M&A activity is consistently active, present an exciting opportunity for me to assist our corporate and financial sponsor clients in the software sector. I look forward to helping the TMT Group continue to grow its track record of success as software becomes an increasingly integral part of the way we work, learn, play, and socialize,” said Khiari.
Khiari holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Paris-Sorbonne and an MBA in Finance from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.
With 67 financial professionals covering 25 sectors around the world, Houlihan Lokey’s TMT Group provides M&A advisory, private capital raising, debt and equity financing, restructuring services, financial opinions, valuations, and distressed services for hundreds of technology, telecom, media, entertainment, and gaming companies. Its clients run the gamut, from early-stage businesses and midsize companies to large, publicly traded corporations. From 2018 to 2020, the firm was ranked as the No. 1 advisor for U.S. technology, media, entertainment, and telecom transactions under $5 billion*, according to Refinitiv.
*Includes acquired firm transactions.