Top Restructuring Investment Banks: 8 Firms to Target
Updated: 6 days ago
Restructuring is having its biggest year since 2010, and none of it is happening at Goldman Sachs. The first half of 2026 logged 372 large US corporate bankruptcies, the highest first-half count in sixteen years, and the fees are flowing to a short list of independent advisors. The eight firms below are where the mandates, and the analyst seats, actually live.
As a former McKinsey consultant who runs WSG, I push sophomores toward restructuring (RX) earlier every cycle, because the seats are small, the prep is specific, and the candidates who commit early wipe the floor with prestige-shoppers who discover the group in junior fall. This list ranks the firms and tells you the real door into each.
Beyond this overview, Lazard and PJT each run distinct restructuring practices worth knowing in detail, from how Lazard's group actually operates, with the full guide here, to how PJT's process compares, which we cover here.
Why isn't Goldman Sachs on a restructuring list?
Structural conflict, never lack of interest. Bulge bracket banks often help companies raise debt, and their research teams may also cover those same companies. Because of this, they can have conflicts of interest when a company gets into financial trouble. Distressed companies usually hire independent advisors to avoid these conflicts and get unbiased advice.
That distinction explains the industry map: Goldman can and does work on restructurings when conflicts are manageable, but the largest dedicated restructuring franchises are concentrated at independent advisors because they can approach distressed situations with fewer competing interests. Houlihan Lokey, PJT, Rothschild, Lazard and Perella Weinberg, for example, dominated the 2024 global financial restructuring rankings.
Which restructuring bank is best for undergrads?
PJT for prestige and a dedicated Summer Analyst track, Houlihan Lokey for the deepest deal flow and seats beyond New York, Lazard for a rare dual-track choice between dedicated RX and a generalist blend. The honest answer depends on which trade-off you want, which is what the list below maps.
The 8 firms
1. PJT Partners
PJT's Restructuring and Special Situations Group leads the industry in court-approved fees, per Octus's H1 2026 rankings.
Website: pjtpartners.com/careers
Franchise: the most prestigious debtor-side RX practice on the street
Live mandates: debtor-side advisor to Spirit Airlines through its 2025 Chapter 11 restructuring, which continued through 2026; PJT also advised on other major distressed situations across its Restructuring & Special Situations franchise.
Entry: a dedicated Restructuring and Special Situations Summer Analyst posting for the 2027 cycle, direct-to-RX from day one
Read next: our Ultimate Guide to PJT Restructuring
The scarcest seat in the industry, with an implied acceptance rate our deep dive puts below 1.5 percent. Apply to PJT's RX track the day it opens, then build the rest of your list assuming you won't get it.
Houlihan Lokey swept the investment banking top spot in Octus's H1 2026 Americas restructuring rankings, on the back of the deepest creditor-side franchise in RX.
Website: hl.com/careers
Franchise: largest RX practice by headcount and engagement count, dominant with creditor groups
Live mandates: advised the ad hoc lender group on Marelli's 2025 Chapter 11
Entry: dedicated Summer Financial Analyst seats in Financial Restructuring, posted for New York plus Minneapolis, Chicago, and Dallas
Read next: our Ultimate Guide to Houlihan Lokey Restructuring
Those non-New York seats are the most underpriced asset in RX recruiting. A Houlihan Financial Restructuring seat in Chicago or Dallas faces a fraction of the applicant pool chasing the same training.
3. Evercore
Evercore renamed the group Liability Management and Restructuring, which tells you where the fees went.
Website: evercore.com/careers
Franchise: elite on both debtor and creditor sides, now branded around the out-of-court LME wave
Live mandates: advised the ad hoc creditor group on First Brands' September 2025 Chapter 11
Entry: a dedicated Liability Management and Restructuring Summer Analyst program in New York
Read next: our Ultimate Guide to Evercore Restructuring
Use the current group name in cover letters and interviews. Candidates still writing "Evercore RX" flag their prep as secondhand.
4. Lazard
Lazard is the only firm on this list that lets you apply to restructuring two ways: a dedicated track or a generalist M&A-and-restructuring blend.
Website: lazard.com/careers/students
Franchise: the legacy RX house with the deepest cross-border and sovereign bench
Live mandates: Advised First Brands on its 2025 Chapter 11 bankruptcy restructuring, including helping arrange $1.1 billion in financing to keep the company operating during the bankruptcy..
Entry: separate 2027 Summer Analyst postings for Restructuring and Liability Management and for the M&A and Restructuring generalist pool
Read next: our Ultimate Guide to Lazard Restructuring
The dual track is a real strategic choice: dedicated if RX is the plan, generalist if you want the option without the commitment.
5. Moelis
Moelis staff restructuring more fluidly than any Tier 1 rival, so a generalist analyst can earn real RX reps without a dedicated seat.
Website: moelis.com/careers
Franchise: strong RX group inside a generalist advisory platform, fluid staffing across M&A and restructuring
Entry: generalist Summer Analyst program with RX exposure through staffing rather than a separate track
Fit: the candidate who wants RX on the menu but not tattooed on the resume
The flip side of flexibility is competition for staffings once inside. Show up with waterfall mechanics already drilled and the RX staffers find you.
Perella Weinberg runs a top-tier-adjacent RX practice with a materially smaller applicant funnel than the five firms above.
Website: pwpartners.com/careers
Franchise: debtor and creditor mandates in the tier just below the big five
Entry: intern and graduate recruitment into a generalist pool, with RX exposure by staffing
Fit: strong candidates who want elite-boutique training with better odds per application
The lateral math from our deep dive applies here: 12 to 18 months of Tier 2 RX experience puts you at the front of the line when a Tier 1 seat opens mid-cycle.
Guggenheim pairs a legitimate restructuring practice with the friendliest early-access programs on this list.
Website: guggenheimsecurities.com/careers
Franchise: growing RX and special situations practice inside a full-service advisory firm
Entry: generalist Summer Analyst plus early pipeline programs, a freshman Day on the Job and a sophomore FOCUS program
Fit: freshmen and sophomores who want a foot in the door before junior-year recruiting
Those early programs matter in RX specifically, because the vertical rewards candidates who commit early and can prove it.
Ducera is the boutique the restructuring industry itself respects, founded in 2015 by senior RX bankers and still small enough that analysts sit in every meeting.
Website: ducerapartners.com/careers
Franchise: pure-play restructuring and special situations advisory, four US offices
Entry: small campus-hire classes posted through its careers page
Fit: the candidate optimizing for reps per analyst over brand recognition
Tiny classes cut both ways: the most senior exposure per analyst in RX, and a recruiting process that hires single digits per year.
The RX interview filters on three things
Every firm above runs the same three-part screen, per our restructuring deep dive. Standard accounting and valuation first, harder than the M&A version of the same questions. RX-specific technicals second: recovery waterfalls, capital structure mechanics, Chapter 11 basics, and the liability management vocabulary the Evercore group renamed itself after. Contextual understanding third, and this one decides ties: can you explain why RX lives at independent firms, and do you have a view on a live situation?
The waterfall question is a classic. Given $1.2 billion of senior secured debt, $400 million unsecured, and a $1 billion enterprise value, where does value break and who holds the fulcrum security? If you can answer that on a whiteboard in three minutes, you've cleared the technical bar at most of these firms. A student I mentored through WSG drilled exactly that mechanic on real 2025 cap tables, Marelli and First Brands pulled from public dockets, and her Houlihan interviewer asked about one of them by name.
Reading one live bankruptcy docket beats memorizing fifty flashcards, because every firm on this list wants candidates with a view on a real situation.
What about the firms not on this list?
Centerview keeps pushing into restructuring, advising the ad hoc lender group on United Site Services and winning the Venezuela sovereign mandate in May 2026. Lazard subsequently challenged Centerview for the mandate with a $25 million proposal, but Venezuela rejected Lazard’s offer and retained Centerview.. Its RX staffing runs through a generalist program, so treat Centerview as an elite generalist bet with RX upside. Rothschild & Co runs serious restructuring work with a European center of gravity. Greenhill's RX practice now lives inside Mizuho as Mizuho Greenhill, with recruiting folded into Mizuho's combined internship, and Miller Buckfire survives only as Stifel's Capital Structure Advisory Group, so neither is a standalone target anymore. Jefferies does real RX inside a full-service platform.
Exits: the narrow menu that pays like the wide one
RX exits cluster into credit funds, distressed hedge funds, and increasingly the mega-fund PE seats that used to hire only M&A analysts. Oaktree, Silver Point, Centerbridge, and the credit arms of Apollo and Blackstone recruit from these eight firms as a matter of routine, and credit funds hire year-round rather than in one compressed on-cycle sprint, which takes real pressure off your first analyst year.
The trade against M&A is optionality for depth. A top M&A analyst can pivot to almost anything; a top RX analyst has a shorter destination list where the compensation matches or beats mega-fund PE. Decide which trade you want before you commit the prep hours, because the interview will test whether you've decided.
The honest read on pay and the play
Analyst comp in RX matches elite-boutique M&A scale rather than exceeding it; candidate-reported figures show firm-level differences, with Houlihan reportedly paying its RX analysts toward the top of its own bands, but no systematic RX premium at the junior level. The premium arrives later, through exits into credit funds and distressed investors that hire almost exclusively from these eight logos.
The play for a sophomore reading this in fall 2026: apply to PJT, Houlihan, Evercore, and Lazard's dedicated tracks the day 2027 postings open, add Moelis and PWP as generalist shots, and drill waterfalls until they're automatic. Our Ultimate Guide to Break Into Restructuring covers the technical stack. The cycle rewards the prepared, and this cycle is the busiest in sixteen years.
One framing note for interviews this fall: the wave isn't only Chapter 11. The out-of-court liability management boom, the up-tiers and drop-downs that firms now market entire groups around, means plenty of 2026 mandates never touch a courtroom. Candidates who can talk about both lanes, court-supervised and out-of-court, sound like they've read the industry rather than a prep guide. That's the entire trick: the material is public, the firms are eight, and almost nobody your age does the reading.
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