Liabilities are considered debt if they require interest payments. For example, a loan from a bank would be considered debt since you are required to pay interest on it. However, accounts payable would not be considered debt since you do not pay interest on it. It’s a net working capital item beca...

Market capitalization is calculated by the total number of common shares outstanding multiplied by the stock price, It does not account for options. Of the three metrics, it is the easiest to find, calculate, and understand. Fully diluted equity is calculated as fully diluted shares outstanding mult...

Shareholder’s equity represents the portion of the assets that have been funded by equity as opposed to liabilities / debt. It also acts as an “odometer” of all the net income a company has earned / accumulated. Some sources of equity investment include: Original investment by the founder(s) t...

Assets = Liabilities + Shareholder’s Equity Above is the balance sheet equation, which is saying that all assets must be funded by either liabilities (e.g. debt) or shareholder’s equity (e.g. money from private or public investors). If the equation does not balance, that means there is an error ...

There are two ways the cash flow statement can be prepared: the direct method, and the indirect method. The direct method is the easiest to understand, but rarely used in more publicly traded companies. We just record all the cash inflows and outflows as they happen, categorizing them between cash f...

Even if a company is growing and has positive EBITDA margins, it is possible that the expenses beneath EBITDA are large enough to counteract any positive EBITDA, ultimately resulting in a negative net income. Expense items beneath EBITDA include: depreciation and amortization, interest, and tax. The...

Ending Inventory = Beginning Inventory + Purchases – Cost of Goods Sold (COGS) Purchases do not affect the income statement, since they represent purchases of unsold inventory which have not been delivered to the customer. However, COGS does show up on the income statement, since it represents...

Some businesses will take an initial deposit from the customer and deliver the goods or services at a later date or over a period of time. Instead of having the customer pay on credit, which would go to accounts receivable, you receive the deposit and end up with deferred / unearned revenue since yo...

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 ...

You should try to speak to a trend that is related to the group you’re interviewing for or the subsectors that the PE firm focuses on. For example, if the group is focused on infrastructure, you can speak to how solar power projects have been significantly boosted from the US infrastructure spendi...