Houlihan Lokey Advises WilliamsMarston

Houlihan Lokey is pleased to announce the sale of WilliamsMarston LLC, a portfolio company of Align Capital Partners (ACP), to Kelso & Company, LP (Kelso). The transaction closed in August 2022.

Headquartered in Boston, WilliamsMarston is a differentiated, national leader in providing complex accounting, tax, and valuation advisory services. Since ACP’s initial investment in July 2020, the firm has achieved transformational growth under the leadership of WilliamsMarston’s co-founders, Landen Williams and Jon Marston.

ACP is a growth-oriented private equity firm that partners with business owners and management teams to create shared success. ACP manages $775 million in committed capital with investment teams in Cleveland and Dallas. ACP brings experience and resources to help lower-middle-market companies accelerate their growth, to the benefit of management, employees, and the firm’s investors. ACP makes control investments in differentiated companies within the business services, technology, specialty manufacturing, and distribution sectors.

Kelso is one of the oldest and most established firms specializing in private equity investing. Since 1980, Kelso has invested approximately $19 billion of equity capital in more than 135 transactions. Kelso was founded by the inventor of the employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) and, as a result, the principles of partnership and alignment of interest serve as the foundation of the firm’s investment philosophy. Kelso benefits from a successful investment track record, deep sector expertise, a long-tenured investing team, and a reputation as a preferred partner to management teams and corporates. Kelso has significant experience investing in financial services, having deployed approximately $4 billion of equity capital in the sector.

Houlihan Lokey served as a financial advisor to WilliamsMarston and assisted in structuring and negotiating the transaction on its behalf. This deal exemplifies the continued success of Houlihan Lokey’s dedicated coverage of the specialty consulting and risk services market to deliver outstanding results to the selling shareholders.