Moelis & Company
Encyclopedia
Moelis & Company is a global investment banking
Investment banking
An investment bank is a financial institution that assists individuals, corporations and governments in raising capital by underwriting and/or acting as the client's agent in the issuance of securities...

 and merchant banking firm. The firm provides advisory services related to mergers & acquisitions, recapitalization & restructuring, capital markets advisory and risk advisory. The firm also manages investment funds that integrate capital with its advisory expertise.

The firm which was founded in July 2007 by Ken Moelis, the former head of UBS AG
UBS AG
UBS AG is a Swiss global financial services company headquartered in Basel and Zürich, Switzerland, which provides investment banking, asset management, and wealth management services for private, corporate, and institutional clients worldwide, as well as retail clients in Switzerland...

's investment banking division, is headquartered in New York with offices in Houston, Dubai, Hong Kong, Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston, London, Sydney and Beijing.

History

Moelis & Company was founded in 2007 by Ken Moelis
Ken Moelis
Ken Moelis is an investment banker and founder of Moelis & Company, an independent investment banking firm.-Education:Ken Moelis holds a Bachelor in Business Administration and a Masters of Business Administration from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.-Career:Moelis began his...

 and several fellow senior UBS investment bankers that included Navid Mahmoodzadegan, Jeff Raich, John Momtazee, Todd Wadler, Elizabeth Crain and Warren Woo. Moelis's departure was reportedly caused in part by repeated conflict over the availability of capital from the bank's balance sheet to pursue large transactions, particularly leveraged buyouts.

Moelis joined UBS from Donaldson Lufkin & Jenrette in 2001, shortly after that firm had been acquired by Credit Suisse First Boston
Credit Suisse First Boston
Credit Suisse First Boston was the former name of the banking firm Credit Suisse.-History:In 1978, Credit Suisse and First Boston Corporation formed a London-based 50-50 investment banking joint venture called the Financière Crédit Suisse-First Boston...

. In his six years at UBS, Moelis ultimately assumed the role of president of UBS Investment Bank and was credited with the build-out of UBS's investment banking operation in in the United States. By the end of 2006, UBS was ranked Top 4 in the global fee pool for the first time.

Moelis began his career at Drexel Burnham Lambert
Drexel Burnham Lambert
Drexel Burnham Lambert was a major Wall Street investment banking firm, which first rose to prominence and then was forced into bankruptcy in February 1990 by its involvement in illegal activities in the junk bond market, driven by Drexel employee Michael Milken. At its height, it was the...

 where he was a managing director working for Michael Milken
Michael Milken
Michael Robert Milken is an American business magnate, financier, and philanthropist noted for his role in the development of the market for high-yield bonds during the 1970s and 1980s, for his 1990 guilty plea to felony charges for violating US securities laws, and for his funding of medical...

 in the firm's Los Angeles office. Following the collapse of Drexel, Moelis left with a portion of his team to join Donaldson Lufkin & Jenrette where he served as head of its corporate finance investment banking division. Under Moelis, DLJ emerged as the largest investment banking firm in Los Angeles in the 1990s.

Following the acquisition of DLJ by Credit Suisse First Boston
Credit Suisse First Boston
Credit Suisse First Boston was the former name of the banking firm Credit Suisse.-History:In 1978, Credit Suisse and First Boston Corporation formed a London-based 50-50 investment banking joint venture called the Financière Crédit Suisse-First Boston...

 in 2000, Moelis was named head of US investment banking of the combined firm in September 2000. However, his tenure at CSFB would be short, announcing his departure for UBS (then known as UBS Warburg) just months later taking the core of his team with him, including a number that would later join Moelis & Company. Moelis recruited more than 70 senior investment bankers to UBS within three months of his arrival.

Moelis & Company benefited from the financial crisis of 2008, recruiting investment bankers from larger firms that had been heavily impacted in the crisis. The firm was one of several notable boutique investment banking firms to recurit aggressively during this period.

Moelis & Company is currently advising on the possible sale of Monitronics
Monitronics
Monitronics International was founded in 1994 and is one of the three largest security alarm monitoring companies in the United States. Headquartered in Dallas, the company provides burglar and fire alarm monitored security system services approximately 800,000 residential and commercial customers...

, a property owned by ABRY Partners
ABRY Partners
ABRY Partners is a private equity firm headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts that focuses on investments in media. Since 1989, the firm has completed over $18.0 billion of leveraged transactions and other private equity and mezzanine investments, representing investments in more than 450 media...

.

Acquisitions

In September 2010, Moelis & Company reached an agreement to acquire a New York-based multi strategy credit manager 'Gracie Credit'. The transaction is expected to be closed by November 2010.
In January 2011, Moelis and Company reached an agreement to acquire Hong Kong based Asia Pacific Advisor's in an effort to expand their operations in the Far East. In July 2011, Moelis Capital Partners announced that they would be acquiring CyberCore Technologies.

External links

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