M&A advisor Palm Tree launches Dallas office

Palm Tree, a Los Angeles-headquartered mergers and acquisitions advisory firm, has expanded into Texas with a new Dallas location.

The Dallas office will allow Palm Tree to better serve mid-market businesses in the Southcentral US. The location joins existing offices in LA, Chicago, and Detroit.

The Texas expansion is part of Palm Tree’s efforts to strengthen its team, which now includes 120 professionals providing finance, business consulting, and transaction expertise during the entire M&A process.

"Palm Tree recognizes a significant opportunity in Dallas, a thriving metropolitan hub within Texas, aligning seamlessly with our core sectors of focus. These encompass industrials, manufacturing, energy, business services, consumer, education, tourism, and hospitality," said Pardis Nasseri, CEO and president of Palm Tree.

The Dallas team includes managing director Phillip Cooper, who has been at Palm Tree for two years, and Rouzheen Myrick, director of the consulting service line, who joined Palm Tree four years ago.

Cooper has 30+ years of experience in investment banking, commercial banking, and entrepreneurship, with expertise across telecom, energy, and manufacturing, among other industries. He has extensive advisory experience in buy- and sell-side transactions, capital raises, and debt restructurings.

Cooper previously spent four years at investment bank JD Merit, where he was a managing director. Before that, he founded and led Certain Communications Corporation, a provider of telecom and communications services to phone companies.

Earlier in his career, Cooper spent nine years at investment bank Jefferies, where he was latterly a senior vice president.

He has an MBA from the University of Colorado and a bachelor’s degree in finance from The University of Texas at Austin.

Myrick has 15 years of professional services experience with a focus on transactions advisory including financial due diligence, integration, purchase price accounting, and financial planning and analysis.

Before joining Palm Tree, Myrick spent four-and-a-half years at engineering consultancy Aecom, where she was a senior manager in the firm’s internal corporate finance practice.

Before that, she spent six years at EY, initially working in the firm’s audit practice before moving to transaction advisory.

Myrick has master’s and bachelor’s degrees in accounting from The University of Texas at Austin.

"Having known Cooper for up to two decades and witnessing Myrick's rapid professional growth since joining Palm Tree four years ago, they are ideal to spearhead this initiative,” Nasseri said. “With extensive professional networks in the region and diverse transactional experience aligning with Palm Tree's M&A, business consulting, and due diligence practices, we’re confident they’ll ensure our continued success.”