In the mid-1980s at Drexel Burnham Lambert, he was a pioneer in advising companies emerging from bankruptcy. Then six years ago he tried something different and went to Joseph Littlejohn & Levy (now JLL Partners), a firm that specializes in making private equity investments in distressed companies. The slower pace left him . . . well, a little bored. Now he’s back in the fast lane as the newest partner in what’s now Miller Buckfire Lewis Ying & Co., a restructuring boutique that split from Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein last year. “I missed the action of being in the deal business -- working on five or six transactions at once instead of one or two,” says Ying. Unlike most other investment bankers, he should have plenty to keep him busy: Corporate America continues to battle high debt loads and a sputtering economy, fueling a restructuring boom. “I hope that there are no more WorldComs or Enrons, because it’s just a horrible event for business confidence and the capital markets,” he says. “But I do think there’s still going to be a lot of work to be done.”
