Andrew Miller, Investment Banker

Andrew Miller, Investment Banker

Andrew Miller, 40, runs the distressed-company mergers practice at Los Angeles-based investment bank Houlihan Lokey Howard & Zukin. He restructures and finds buyers for troubled companies.

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This last year was very rewarding. We were very busy. We did a record number of deals for our firm. We also tended to do larger deals than we had seen historically....

Whenever you’re growing and working hard and working in such stressed conditions--most of your clients are dealing with a number of their own personal issues--it can be trying.

I traveled a lot this last year. Since 9/11, I was out of town and on the road virtually every week. I work all over the country. I found that I was in, on average, two cities a week, every week since 9/11, which gets to be a bit of a drag. It wears you down a little bit.

And yet your business is running so hot, or at least our business has been running so hot, that I’ve actually found it so personally rewarding that I’ve been pretty charged up. It just means that when you get home over the weekends you really need to spend the additional time to recharge your batteries and kind of cocoon.

It seems like we used to go out a lot and now we spend more time at home relaxing and getting recharged for the coming week....

I believe, after talking to a lot of people in the restructuring community across the country, that people worked so hard this last year and were so affected by 9/11 that they are going to really try to take the holidays off and not work and spend some time with their families.

People suffered some pretty tremendous emotional hits this last year with 9/11 and the recession. They’re just looking to nurture themselves a little bit, get back in touch with family and just try to treat themselves nicely over the holiday and not spend the whole holiday working and driving themselves....

I don’t like to talk about the hours. You do what you need to do. This is not a 40-hour-a-week job. Even when you’re not working into the wee hours of the morning, it’s a job that requires a pretty substantial commitment and dedication....

We’ve got a lot of people who are working pretty hard and making some sacrifices. And when everybody’s doing it to build the business and be successful, it’s just much easier to do.

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As told to Walter Hamilton