Mr. Hawkes is a Director in Houlihan Lokey’s Financial and Valuation Advisory business, specializing in capital markets tax transactional assistance. He has more than three decades of experience in the practice of law, government service, and public accounting. Mr. Hawkes works with cross-functional groups to support tax structuring and advisory initiatives in the Financial Restructuring, Corporate Finance, Transaction Advisory, and Corporate Valuation Advisory Services teams, among others. He is based in the firm’s New York office.
Mr. Hawkes’ technical specialties include tax-free spin-offs, organizations, reorganizations, and liquidations. He also specializes in taxable stock and asset acquisitions and dispositions; cancelations of debt and debt modifications; in- and out-of-court financial restructurings; partnership and S corporation acquisitions, dispositions, and structuring; tax attribute limitations and preservation; consolidated return regulations; and cross-border M&A provisions. Mr. Hawkes has spoken at various conferences sponsored by organizations such as the American Bar Association and the Tax Executives Institute.
Prior to joining Houlihan Lokey, Mr. Hawkes was a Principal within KPMG’s New York M&A Tax practice, where he led the Technology, Media, and Telecommunications industry focus. Prior to his tenure at KPMG, he served as an attorney in the U.S. government, first as a Career Law Clerk in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court, District of Connecticut, and then as an attorney and reviewer in the Internal Revenue Service Office of Chief Counsel, National Office, Corporate Division. Mr. Hawkes began his career in the Commercial Real Estate and Secured Lending practice at a midsized law firm.
Mr. Hawkes graduated cum laude with an A.B. degree from Harvard University and cum laude with a J.D. from Cornell Law School, where he was a Senior Editor of the Cornell Law Review. He is a licensed attorney in Connecticut and Florida.