American bank buys Quayle Munro

Corporate finance business Quayle Munro, which was founded in Edinburgh in 1983 before moving to London five years ago to focus on media and technology, has agreed to be acquired by global independent investment bank Houlihan Lokey.

The New York listed firm with offices in Europe, the United States, the Middle East and the Asia-Pacific region has expertise in mergers and acquisitions, capital markets, financial restructuring, valuation, and strategic consulting.

The agreement was signed on 16th January and is expected to close following regulatory approvals.

Quayle Munro, whose 40 staff will now all join Houlihan Lokey, provides corporate finance advisory services to companies underpinned by data and analytics, content, software and services.

Founded by Ian Quayle Jones and Mike Munro thirty years ago, the firm had achieved renown advising on privatisations and private finance initiative projects.

However, it decided in 2012 to focus on the corporate finance market in London.

The company sold its project finance business, which specialised in areas such as infrastructure, to a management buyout team. The project finance business remains based in Edinburgh and trades as QMPF.

Announcing its acquisition, the firm said that “in addition to its comprehensive global presence, extensive private equity coverage and broad sector expertise, Houlihan Lokey possesses a strong cultural compatibility with the Quayle Munro team that will ensure both a smooth, successful integration and rapid value enhancement for clients of both firms”.

Houlihan Lokey has been consistently named the No. 1 investment bank in its class for the past 10 years and, in 2017, was ranked by Thomson Reuters as No. 1 M&A Advisor for All U.S. Transactions, and as one of the Top 10 Most Active Global M&A Advisors.

Andrew Adams, Quayle Munro’s CEO, who will serve as co-head of Houlihan Lokey’s UK corporate finance business, added: “We are extremely excited by this opportunity and believe that the combination with Houlihan Lokey will provide significant benefits to our clients through leveraging Houlihan Lokey’s strong U.S. presence and international network, its deep relationships with private equity and its market leading financial restructuring and valuation practices. We remain totally committed to providing our clients with high quality, independent advice and look forward to speaking with you about our expanded capabilities as part of Houlihan Lokey.”

Scott Adelson, co-president and Global co-head of corporate Finance at Houlihan Lokey, added: “We think the team at Quayle Munro has built an extremely high quality advisory business which is an excellent fit with Houlihan Lokey. Our approach to business and clients is very similar. Quayle Munro’s clients will continue to see the same dedication to independent advice they have experienced in the past, with the added benefits of Quayle Munro becoming part of a substantial international advisory group. We very much look forward to working with the Quayle Munro team.”