Houlihan Lokey Hires Managing Director and Head Of The Private Growth Equity Capital Practice

In this capacity, he will help raise growth capital for private companies in mid-stage to late-stage (mezzanine), profitable or near-term profitable, as well as pre-IPO rounds. In the span of his 25-plus year career, Tanzer has produced more than $5bn of venture gains for investors from transactions he has agented.

'Equity markets have begun to show some signs of improvement in the first quarter of 2012 with investors demonstrating a renewed sense of confidence', said Scott Adelson, Senior Managing Director and Global Co-Head of Corporate Finance. 'Josh brings a wealth of experience working with fund managers and institutional investors in raising growth equity for private companies. We’re delighted to welcome him to the team as we continue to expand our investor relationship universe for clients across all industries and sectors'.

'Houlihan Lokey has a proven track record of engineering and executing financings in a variety of market conditions', commented Tanzer. 'I look forward to leveraging my expertise in growth equity transactions to provide clients with creative and innovative solutions that help them achieve their strategic and financial objectives'.

Previously, Tanzer served as a managing director in Morgan Keegan’s Technology Group, where he advised on more than $200m in growth equity transactions. Prior, he was a managing director at Lazard Freres & Co., where he raised $175m of private equity capital for Virgin America, the largest amount of private equity raised for a de novo airline. Before joining Lazard, he founded and operated Principia Capital Group, focused on clients in the technology and digital media industries. Principia was responsible for raising Vonage Holdings’ private equity capital and also sold the wireless data division of Vivendi Universal, Moviso. Prior to forming Principia, he was global head of Private Equity for CSFB's Technology Group (formerly DMG Tech Group). The group completed 85 transactions and raised approximately $5.4bn.

Tanzer is a Certified Management Accountant and received a B.S. in accounting from the University of Denver. He currently serves on the Board of P.S. Arts, an arts education program for Title 1 schools in Los Angeles.