Company: HLI
Filing Date: 2025-05-15
Form Type: 10-K
Source: 0001302215-25-000024
Chunk: 17

Company: HOULIHAN LOKEY, INC.
Filing Date: 2025-05-15
Form: 10-K
Item: Item 1
Chunk 17
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, 2025, we had 42 Managing Directors in our FVA group, which we believe represents one of the largest and most respected valuation and financial opinion practices in the United States. We have developed a reputation as a thought-leader in the field of valuation, and our professionals produce influential studies and publications, which are recognized and valued throughout the financial industry. We believe our extensive transaction expertise and leadership in the fields of valuation, diligence, tax and financial analytics inspire the confidence of the financial executives, boards of directors, special committees, retained counsel, financial and strategic investors and business owners that we serve. We believe that our reputation for delivering an outstanding analytical product that will withstand legal or regulatory scrutiny coupled with our independent financial, accounting and tax skills makes us the advisor of choice for clients with complex valuation, transaction opinion, transaction accounting, tax and diligence needs.

Our core competencies in our FVA practice are based in our deep technical financial, accounting and tax skills. These capabilities include our ability to analyze and value companies, security interests, and different types of assets, including complex illiquid investments, as well as our ability to analyze, diligence and structure the financial and tax aspects of public and private transactions. We are organized around different service lines as each line has different regulatory or compliance specializations as well as different marketing channels.

Human Capital Resources

Our goal is to attract, develop and retain the best talent in our industry across all levels. We believe our compensation programs are competitive, offering a portion of compensation in deferred cash and a portion in deferred stock awards to provide incentives for our employees to remain with us. In addition, we strive to foster a collaborative environment to attract and retain employees, and we seek individuals who fit our culture of entrepreneurship, integrity, creativity, and commitment to our clients. For over 20 years, we have emphasized broad employee ownership as a way to align the incentives of our employees and shareholders. As of March 31, 2025, we had approximately 1,100 present and former employee shareholders that collectively owned approximately 24% of our equity with no single employee owning more than 2% of our equity. We believe that a strong emphasis on cultural fit during our recruiting process combined with broad employee ownership results in high retention rates.

Our Managing Directors (other than our executive officers) are compensated based on their ability to deliver profitable revenues on a consistent basis to our firm, the quality of advice and execution provided to our clients, and their collaboration with their colleagues across industries, products, and regions. We do