Restructuring Advisor
Definition
Restructuring (RX) advisors are the investment bankers who advise companies (debtor-side) or creditor groups (creditor-side) through distressed situations — out-of-court amendments and exchanges, liability management transactions, and in-court Chapter 11 processes. Leading franchises are concentrated at independent advisory firms (e.g., PJT, Houlihan Lokey, Evercore, Lazard, Moelis), partly because balance-sheet banks face conflicts as existing lenders.
Debtor-side work includes liquidity forecasting (13-week cash flow, often with a turnaround firm as CRO), designing the restructuring (amend-and-extend, exchange offers, debt-for-equity), negotiating with creditor committees, raising DIP and exit financing, and running 363 sale processes. Creditor-side work includes recovery/waterfall analysis, negotiating RSAs, and organizing ad hoc groups.
RX is countercyclical relative to M&A and requires blended skills: valuation, credit documentation, and bankruptcy process knowledge.
Why interviewers ask
"Why restructuring?" and "what does an RX banker actually do?" open every RX interview — you should contrast debtor versus creditor mandates and name the independent firms that dominate the league tables. It also frames why RX interviews are more technical on credit and bankruptcy than standard IB interviews.
Related terms
Interviews don't test definitions — they test recall under pressure.
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