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Walk me through a deal you’ve worked on. (1-2 min)

First, you should provide the context of the deal and company. Explain the target business in an easy-to-understand way, and describe its key segments. Provide a quick overview of the acquirer and its strategic rationale. It’s important to explain upfront why the deal is happening and what the industry backdrop is. For example, is this […]

What are your three greatest strengths?

You should just be relatively honest about your three greatest strengths, while avoiding overconfident answers like intelligence. Passion, attitude, leadership, intellectual curiosity, work ethic, and resilience are some examples. First, list your 3 strengths. Then use this opportunity to tell a quick story about each strength and provide an example from work, school, or extracurricular […]

What is your greatest strength?

This is a personal question and you should generally just be honest about your greatest strength, but make sure the wording is right. Passion, attitude, leadership, intellectual curiosity, work ethic, resilient; the list goes on. Don’t say something that makes you seem cocky, like intelligence (everybody in IB is intelligent to some degree). Ideally, you […]

What are some key debt metrics, and why are they important?

The leverage multiple, debt / EBITDA, is a common metric comparing debt and EBITDA. EBITDA is a proxy for cash flow that can be used to pay back the debt. It’s also a measure of the core profitability of the business that remains neutral in terms of capital structure, tax jurisdiction, and accounting policies. The […]

How can a PE firm incentivize management to stay and perform?

A PE firm can incentivize management to stay by getting management to put up some equity for the acquisition, also known as management rollover. Usually, management will anywhere from 5-20% of the company to ensure they have “skin in the game.” Another common method to incentivize management is with options. Options give management a percentage […]

What is debt sizing in project finance? (1 min)

Debt sizing is used in project finance (infrastructure) to figure out how much debt can be raised to support an infrastructure project each month / year. As dictated by the debt term sheet, there is usually a maximum leverage ratio (eg maximum of 70% debt and 30% equity) and a minimum debt service coverage ratio […]