Pitch Mirelia Foods, a packaged snacks maker with revenue of Rs 1,500 crore growing 11%, a 16% EBITDA margin and a P/E of 38x. Then answer the three follow-ups: why now, what is priced in, and what would make you wrong.

The pitch: Mirelia is a good business priced as a great one. At 38x, a 12% return with a 25x exit needs earnings to grow about 17% a year for ten years, which on 11% revenue growth means the EBITDA margin rising from 16% to about 26%. With the margin flat, the return is about 6.4% a year. Why now: a national rival is attacking its core region. I would be wrong if a premium range could lift the margin into the mid-20s.

Buying a house because it is a lovely house is not an investment case; buying it because it is lovely and priced like an ordinary one is. A pitch has three parts: what the business is, what the price already assumes, and what would prove you wrong. Most candidates deliver the first and stop. The interviewer's follow-ups are designed to find the missing two, so build them in before you speak.

Work backwards from the price, as a reverse DCFStarting from the current price and solving for the growth or margins it implies, instead of forecasting them and solving for value. does. Rs 5,842 crore compounding at 12% for ten years is about Rs 18,146 crore; at 25x that needs profit of about Rs 726 crore in year ten, against Rs 154 crore today. That is earnings growth of about 16.8% a year, while revenue grows 11%, so the profit margin must rise from 10.2% to about 17.0%, an EBITDA margin of about 26%. If the margin stays at 16%, profit grows with revenue and the return is about 6.4% a year.

Why now: a national brand launching a cheaper range in Mirelia's strongest region threatens exactly the margin expansion the price needs, because the usual response is more promotion and dealer margin. What would make you wrong is evidence that the margin can reach the mid-20s, and you should name the test before the interviewer asks. A premium range at a 25% margin reaching 40% of sales, with the rest at 14%, lifts the blend only to about 18.4%. If management can show a path beyond that, through direct distribution or price increases that stick, the pitch fails and you say so.

Deliver it in that order when an interviewer asks you to pitch a stock: one line of thesis, one number for what is priced in, one catalyst, one test that would change your mind. Thirty seconds, and every follow-up already has an answer.