Blenheim taken over by Houlihan Lokey

Blenheim Advisors, the London-headquartered leveraged debt advisory firm, has been acquired by US investment bank Houlihan Lokey as it pursues its European growth strategy.

As part of the deal, William Allen and Jonathan Guise, the founders of Blenheim Advisors, have joined the bank as managing directors and will be joint heads of European Debt Advisory.

David Preiser, senior managing director and chairman of Houlihan Lokey Europe, said, “Over the past decade we have seen a significant increase in the number of European companies and private equity sponsors looking to access the debt capital markets, particularly among the mid-cap to upper mid-cap players. Houlihan Lokey is committed to significantly expanding our ability to serve our European clients. We believe this acquisition will provide our private equity clients with increased access to our M&A advisory, debt advisory and financing solutions.”

Joining Allen and Guise from Blenheim are four senior professionals – Samer Cortas and David Parker join as directors, Romain Cattet as vice president, and Romain Lainer as associate.

Blenheim was founded in 2003 to create a new market for the provision of fully independent and highly qualified leveraged debt advice to financial sponsors active in the European market and their portfolio companies. Both Allen and Guise were previously executive directors in the market leading leveraged finance team of CIBC World Markets.