Cliff Atherton Jr.

Managing Director

Cliff is an investment banker with more than 25 years of experience in corporate finance and 34 years of experience teaching finance at the graduate level. He joined GulfStar in 1995 and has completed numerous corporate finance assignments for business owners. Most of Cliff’s clients are entrepreneur- or family-owned businesses with enterprise values between $25 and $250 million. His transaction experience is split evenly between sales to strategic buyers and recapitalizations with private equity firms. His industry experience includes representation of upstream, midstream and downstream energy service companies as well as manufacturers, distributors, and industrial services firms. Cliff served on the faculty of Rice University’s Jones Graduate School of Business for 34 years (full-time 1981 to 1987 and 1989 academic years) and on the faculty of the University of Houston’s Bauer College of Business for five years (1993 to 1997). Prior to joining GulfStar, he was managing director of McKenna & Company from 1992 to 1995, president of Emprise Consulting Group, Inc. from 1990 to 1992 and an independent consultant from 1978 to 1990.