Browse Our Resources For Acing Your Next Interview

Investment banking interviews are often very technical, testing you on financial concepts not taught in the classroom. The Finance Interview Coach Resources page was created to offer candidates with additional resources to assist in preparing for their interview.

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What are the top 5 questions you would ask management if you were building a DCF?

How does your revenue model work, how do you segment revenue, what are your growth drivers for revenue and how does revenue growth look going forward? What are your gross margins and do you expect that to change? What line items do SG&A consist of? Do you expect these to grow with in-line with revenue [...]

What makes a good investment thesis?

A good investment thesis should present several solid and unique explanations of why this company would be a good investment. Some examples of drivers include ●A M&A roll-up strategy that is looking to buy companies at cheap multiples to accelerate growth ●Efficiency initiatives that seek to eliminate expenses which do not add value The key […]

What’s the difference between a merger and an acquisition?

A merger is usually a “merger-of-equals” between two similarly sized companies and it’s presented as more cooperative. An acquisition is usually done in a straightforward way and it’s clear who the acquiror is right away as the acquiror is often materially larger than the target. A stock deal is more common in a merger, where […]

Why do many traditional mid-market PE firms avoid holding the real estate when buying a company?

Many traditional mid-market PE firms which focus on buying companies for their cash flows and do not have any real estate groups will try to avoid having to buy a lot of real estate in order to complete an LBO. This is because they prefer to focus on their core competencies in buying companies with […]

Walk me through the 3 financial statements.

The income statement shows how profitable or unprofitable your business is. It typically contains revenue, COGS, SG&A, which gets you down to EBITDA, and then contains depreciation and amortization, interest, and tax, which gets you down to net income. The cash flow statement shows the cash coming in and out, how much cash gained or […]

Why do we write-down existing goodwill in an LBO?

The write-down of existing goodwill on the balance sheet increases the excess purchase price. Sometimes, a % of the excess purchase price can be allocated to a PP&E and / or intangible asset write-up. In this scenario, it would be important to write-down existing goodwill since it would impact the amount of the write-up. Excess […]