Investment Banking Interview Essay

Standard Questions: 1. Walk me through the highlights of your resume. What is your story, walk through the decisions you have made, and how that relates to your current interest in Investment Banking.. 2. Why investment banking? Why our bank? 3. How do you value a company? 4. To what extent have you created and used financial models before? Discuss your excel modeling skills. 5. Why did you choose McCombs? 6. What other firms are you interviewing with and why? Are you interviewing with consulting firms also? What career opportunities are you exploring other than I-Banking? 7. What were your grades in college? What were your grades for the first semester at McCombs? What was your GMAT score? 8. What qualities would you consider most important for a career in I-Banking? What are your greatest strengths? What are your weaknesses? 9. What do you understand the responsibilities of an associate/summer associate to be? 10. Describe a current event in the market (i.e., LTCM at the end of 1998)? 11. What questio ns do you have for me? Always have at least two questions prepared per bank. Resume-and personality questions: †¢ Why should I take you instead of someone from Wharton? †¢ Why should I pick you over the other qualified candidates at McCombs? †¢ What made you choose your undergraduate institution? Why did you pursue a major in _____? †¢ What was your favorite class at McCombs so far? Why? †¢ What classes are you currently taking to get ready for the summer? †¢ What are your 5-10 year long term career plans? †¢ What are your proudest accomplishments? What is your most challenging professional experience? †¢ Are you a leader or a follower? Give me an example where you were successful in both roles? †¢ What do you do to relax? †¢ Tell me a joke. †¢ Who has influenced you the most, besides family members? †¢ Say you are at a meeting with a client and your MD is giving a presentation. You suddenly notice a mistake in some of the calculations, which you have prepared. Do you mention it? When? What do you say? †¢ What is one skill that you think is most relevant to Banking? †¢ You seem to like marketing, why are you interested in finance? †¢ What is one word that describes you best? †¢ How would your groupmates describe you? How would you characterize yourself in the group dynamic? If I spoke with your groupmates, what would they say you needed to improve? †¢ Highlight your quantitative accomplishments. †¢ Describe an ethical decision you had to make? †¢ What do you read? What’s your favorite book? †¢ As an associate, what tasks would you like to spend most of your time doing? What percent of each day do you see yourself spending on those tasks? †¢ What is in a pitch book? †¢ What’s been your greatest challenge since beginning McCombs? Greatest accomplishment? †¢ Describe a time you failed, why did you fail, what did you learn? †¢ Describe a time you had to work with someone you didn’t like, or with a difficult person. Finance questions: †¢ What is a LBO? Why lever up a firm? †¢ What makes an attractive LBO? †¢ From a Private Equity firm’s perspective and from a modeling perspective: What are the 3 inputs that matter for an LBO Model? o Answer: Leverage Ratio, Equity Contribution, Estimated Returns, †¢ Why might a company choose to issue debt vs. equity? †¢ What could a company do with excess cash on the balance sheet? †¢ How would you calculate a firm’s WACC? What would you use it for? †¢ What does Beta mean? Where would you find a firm’s Beta? How and why would you unlever a Beta? †¢ What is the CAPM? †¢ How do you calculate the firm value for the following firm? †¢ What would greater impact a firms valuation, a 10% reduction in revenues or 1% reduction in discount rate? †¢ What major factors affect the yield on a corporate bond? †¢ How would you evaluate the creditworthiness of manufacturer with three factories in different locations throughout the US? †¢ Company A trades at a P/E of 20. Company B trades at a P/E of 10. Both are considering acquiring Company C, which trades at a P/E of 15. For which of the two acquiring companies would the deal be dilutive. For which would it be accretive? Explain why for each. †¢ Suppose you are buying a new fixed asset – part cash and part debt. Talk through how it affects all the financial statements. Financial market questions: †¢ Where is the market going? Bond, equity and foreign exchange? Where do you think interest rates will be in the next 12 months? †¢ What happened in the markets in the past three months? †¢ Do you read the Wall Street Journal everyday? What’s on the front page today? †¢ What industry do you follow and what numbers do you look at to determine if a firm is doing well in the industry. Accounting questions: †¢ What are deferred taxes? How do they arise? †¢ What is working capital? How would you calculate it? †¢ What is EBITDA? Why is it so widely used as a proxy for Operating CF in the financial sector? †¢ Say you knew a company’s net income. How would you figure out its cash flows? †¢ Walk me through the 3 major financial statements o What are the major line items of a Cash Flow Statement. o What is the difference between the balance sheet and the income statement? †¢ What is goodwill? How does it affect net income? †¢ A firm is using LIFO, and the COGS start decreasing. What are effects on I/S, BS and CFS? †¢ What is the difference between Purchase and Pooling accounting? Under what circumstances would you use one or the other? Questions on Investment Banks: †¢ Do you understand the lifestyle issues associated with this proffesion? Why don’t you have an problem with these issues? †¢ What is your greatest concern about investment banking? †¢ Why I-Banking vs. Consulting? Sales & Trading? Research? Finance in Industry? †¢ How does your past career qualify you for a position in investment banking? Why are you not going back to prior career? †¢ What do you hope to accomplish over the summer? †¢ What department do you want to work for inside I-banking and why? †¢ Who is in the bulge bracket? †¢ Rank firms on Wall Street and where do we fit? Who is our competition (in the major categories)? What differentiates our firm? What are our firm’s strengths? Weaknesses? †¢ If you were the CEO of our firm, what major changes would you implement? †¢ Describe a typical day of an investment banking associate? Technical Questions: †¢ What makes a proposed acquisition accretive? †¢ Suppose a proposed acquisition is accretive, how would you make it less accretive? †¢ What are the main factors in determining if a deal will be accretive or dilutive? †¢ Walk me through how the purchase of equipment effects the 3 statements. †¢ Walk me through the effects on the 3 statements given that a firm has to retroactively change the method of depreciation for last year’s financial statements. Previously, the firm’s fixed assets carrying value was $100M, with no salvage value, an estimated useful life of 10 years, and straight line depreciation. The salvage value has been determined to be $50M, but the useful life of the asset and method of depreciation has not changed. o Effect on Cash? Cash Flow Statement? †¢ What is the different factors to consider when choosing between Enterprise Value and Equity Value Comps? †¢ When you are trying to scale down the number of firms in your selected Comp universe, what would you look at to decide which Comps to include and which to pull out of the Comp universe? †¢ What types of discounts/premiums would you apply after determining valuation based on a Comp valuation? Why?