Irwin Gold

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Irwin Gold
Born
🏳️ Nationality	American
🏫 Education	Duke University University of Virginia School of Law
💼 Occupation
Title	Executive Chairman of Houlihan Lokey

Irwin Gold is an American businessman who is the Executive Chairman of Houlihan Lokey, Inc. In 1988, he co-founded Houlihan Lokey’s Financial Restructuring Group and has since led many of the Group’s largest, most complex financial restructuring engagements, both in bankruptcy and out-of-court.

Education

Gold holds a B.A. in Economics, summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, from Duke University, as well as a J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law.

Career

In Gold's early career, he spent three years as a lawyer in the corporate department of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, and in 1985, he became a senior officer at Wood Bros. Homes, a Denver-based real estate and mortgage banking company. He helped negotiate a workout and sale of the company and acted as its Vice President and Director of Corporate Finance. Then, in 1986, Gold became a Principal of the Seneca Group, an investment banking and financial advisory firm.

Two years later, in 1988, he joined Houlihan Lokey, where he co-founded the firm's Financial Restructuring Group and acted as its global Co-Head for almost 30 years. Following decades of specializing in corporate restructuring, Gold became Executive Chairman of the firm on April 17, 2013. Under Gold's guidance, Houlihan Lokey filed for its initial public offering in 2015 (NYSE: HLI).

Restructuring deals

Gold, along with his fellow senior executives, have been responsible for some of the largest restructuring deals in U.S. corporate history, including Enron, Lehmann Brothers, General Motors, CIT Group, and WorldCom.

In 2002, Gold was a primary advisor in the restructuring of WorldCom. With debt of $40 billion, it was the largest Chapter 11 filing in U.S. history. By 2004, the company emerged from bankruptcy under the name MCI.

In 2005, Gold led the restructuring process of Delta Air Lines after the company announced it would be targeting an additional $3 billion per year in expense reductions by 2007. It was announced that $970 million in savings was to come from debt relief, lease and facility savings, and previously commenced fleet modifications. A very small percentage of staff was cut as part of the cost savings to allow the airline to remain viable. The restructuring and new initiatives that were introduced meant Delta would return to profitability by late 2007.

In 2009, Gold also led Houlihan Lokey in its restructuring of Charter Communications, reducing debt by $8 billion and raising $3.3 billion of additional capital. A year later, in 2010, Charter Communications was relisted on the NASDAQ.

In 2010, Gold and Houlihan Lokey managed the restructuring of MGM through a pre-packaged Chapter 11 plan that restructured more than $4 billion in debt. During the same year, Gold restructured the $4 billion debt load of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, a global leader in educational content services.

Media commentary

In an interview with Bloomberg in 2018, Gold spoke about the industry-wide issue of retaining young talent. He suggested that young financial professionals should be offered more job enrichment and client-facing opportunities, which he believed encouraged talent to stay at one firm for a longer period of time.

In 2018, he again spoke with Bloomberg about the next cycle of material financial distress. He hoped that the triggers would not lead to a similar lack of liquidity in the markets as witnessed during the financial crisis of 2008–2009. Gold believed that disruptive innovation and globalization in some industries had meant a number of major corporations were more directly affected by new entrants into particular markets than they were 30 years ago. He also believed that political turmoil and geopolitical issues could eventually be external factors that have deeper effects on markets, with Italy being a prime example, and that this change in market conditions could lead to an increase in restructuring. In an interview with Business Insider, Gold stated, "When you have highly leveraged companies and even a modest rise in interest rates, that can result in an increase in restructuring activity."

In March 2020, Gold spoke with Bloomberg’s Sonali Basak to discuss the financial markets during COVID-19, how this crisis differs from others, and what the country can expect to see going forward. He commented that he expects a spike in defaults as a recession may be imminent as a result of the pandemic.

Most recently, in October 2020, Gold spoke with Bloomberg Business as part of the special report “2020 Year of Crisis: The Credit Disconnect” about the impact of the pandemic on small businesses. Gold cited that small businesses are in for a "world of hurt" because they have less of an ability to tolerate downturns than large companies due to factors such as reduced liquidity, access to credit, and capital markets options.

Philanthropy

Gold is a known supporter of numerous charitable causes in the areas of education, human services, the arts, the environment, and healthcare/medical research, particularly relating to childhood diseases, cancer, and heart disease.

References

This article "Irwin Gold" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical and/or the page Edithistory:Irwin Gold. Articles copied from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be seen on the Draft Namespace of Wikipedia and not main one.

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