Peter Nero

Peter Nero is a Managing Director in Houlihan Lokey's Financial Services Group, based in the firm's Chicago office. He joined Houlihan Lokey in 2024 when it acquired Waller Helms Advisors, a boutique investment bank focused on the intersection of the insurance, healthcare, and investment-services sectors, where Nero was a senior advisor/Senior Managing Director. At Waller Helms he advised clients across insurance, insurance services, and healthcare services, spending the majority of his time with specialty insurance carriers, retail and wholesale insurance brokers, and MGAs/program managers.

Earlier in his career, Nero was a Director within Macquarie Capital's Financial Institutions Group. Before that he worked at Cochran Caronia Waller, a specialist financial-services investment bank (Cochran Caronia Waller was part of the lineage that merged with Fox-Pitt Kelton in 2007 to form Fox-Pitt Kelton Cochran Caronia Waller). He began his professional career as a consultant with Accenture and also spent time at Aon within its retail brokerage division, giving him direct operating exposure to the insurance-distribution businesses he now advises.

Nero holds a B.B.A. in Finance and Economics from the University of Dayton and a Master of Management (MBA) from Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management.

• Operates as an M&A and capital-markets advisor, not a check-writing angel/VC — his "focus" is which insurance and insurance-services businesses he takes to market or helps recapitalize.
• Deep concentration in insurance distribution and underwriting: specialty carriers, retail/wholesale brokers, and MGAs/program managers.
• Adjacent coverage in insurance services and healthcare services.
• Value proposition combines advisory pedigree (Macquarie, Cochran Caronia Waller, Waller Helms/Houlihan Lokey) with operating experience inside the sector (Aon retail brokerage, Accenture consulting).