MOELIS: The rise of Amazon is going to drive a surge in dealmaking
"There's a fundamental need to rationalize that people want to get larger to fight online, to fight Amazon in retail specifically," founder and chief executive Ken Moelis told investors on a conference call Monday afternoon.
Moelis said that there would be both acquisitions and restructuring activity in the retail sector, though he said he didn't think advising on restructuring in the retail sector would be as big an opportunity as advising on similar work in the energy sector.
"There's a lot of restructuring going on in the retail business," he said. "But a lot of those are smaller companies who are just kind of closing stores and shutting down in some cases."
For the first half of 2017, Moelis & Co reported revenue of $345 million - 34% higher than the same period last year. The firm will also pay a quarterly dividend of $0.34 per share next month.
Moelis & Co. has advised on many large deals in the past decade. Just after the firm's founding in 2007 it advised Hilton on its $26.5 billion sale to The Blackstone Group, Anheuser Busch's $61.2 billion sale to InBev, and most recently, Tribune Media Company's pending $6.6 billion sale to Sinclair Broadcasting Group.
Since its last earnings report, the firm has hired several new managing directors, both domestically and in the UK, to focus on fintech and industrial tech, two areas Moelis noted were "highly active."
"Fintech has been a part of where we want to have been for a long time," Moelis said. "It's very active and there's a lot of companies in it."
Shares of the firm rose 7% following the earnings beat.