Houlihan Lokey was founded in 1972 and is headquartered at Constellation Place in Century City, Los Angeles, California.

[3] Its main service lines include mergers and acquisitions, capital markets, restructuring and distressed M&A, fairness opinions, and financial and valuation advisory.

In 1986, Kenneth Friedman founded and became President of Houlihan Lokey’s investment banking broker dealer to provide M&A advisory services and to raise debt and equity financing.

To position itself to serve this market, the investment banking broker-dealer purchased Cheviot Capital Corporation in 1987 and, led by Jeff Werbalowsky and Irwin Gold, began assembling what would become an active, dominant, worldwide financial restructuring group.

With the surge of mergers, acquisitions, and leveraged buyouts, Wall Street’s large investment banking firms began calling on Houlihan Lokey for independent valuation expertise in fairness, solvency, and employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) opinions.

In 1995, to grow its information services division, Houlihan Lokey acquired Mergerstat, a publishing company with a 30-year history in analytical M&A research, from Merrill Lynch.

It also expanded its industry group platform and private equity coverage program in keeping with investment banking trends.

[11] In 2010, Houlihan Lokey bought a sizable minority stake in Avista Advisory Group, giving the firm offices in both Mumbai and Singapore.

[25] In July 2021, Houlihan Lokey expanded its coverage of the consumer sector with the acquisition of boutique advisory firm Baylor Klein.

This acquisition strengthened Houlihan Lokey's Financial and Valuation Advisory business and expanded its presence in Europe.