Heather Smith has joined Houlihan Lokey’s Capital Markets group as a managing director and head of Structured Equity. Smith will focus on providing customized equity capital solutions to corporate and financial sponsor backed clients for acquisition finance, growth capital and balance sheet recapitalizations. She is based in New York.

Smith has more than 20 years of experience in the private placement industry, having raised approximately $12 billion in equity and debt capital for companies in the U.S., Europe and South America. She joins from Sagent Advisors, where she was a managing director and head of the Private Financing Solutions group with a focus on raising equity and equity-linked securities utilizing complex financing structures for late stage companies.

Previous experience includes leading a Private Placement group at both Deutsche Bank and Greentech Capital, where she raised equity, debt and project finance. She also served as a director in the Private Placements group at Credit Suisse.

“The continuing growth of non-traditional capital providers creates attractive opportunities to develop bespoke structured finance solutions for our clients, however successfully accessing this capital requires deep market knowledge and industry relationships,” said Scott Adelson, co-president and co-head of Corporate Finance. “Heather brings those qualities to our market-leading Capital Markets team. Her decades of experience and excellent cultural fit with our passionate approach to client service will be substantially beneficial to our clients and to the continued growth of the business.”