The 30-year-old obsessive networker who is dominating a wildly profitable niche on Wall Street known as ‘directs’

It was August 2023, and Matt Swain had five offers on the table for Triago, the company where he’d recently ascended to CEO. He’d built the mightily profitable franchise in an obscure corner of private equity called “directs”—essentially pairing solidly run businesses that wanted to sell, with family offices looking for outsize returns. Now, suitors comprising top banks from Spain and Korea, a leading U.S. private equity firm, a major Midwestern lender, and a giant Asian trading house were circling.

But as Swain weighed the offers, one stood out—from Bob Hotz, chairman of corporate finance and acquisitions chief at mid-market investment banking powerhouse Houlihan Lokey . He felt sure that Houlihan would provide the best home for himself and his team. So he was crushed when an email arr