Equity Research interview preparation

Sell side and buy side. Every question is either traced to a named firm from a public candidate report, or tagged at desk level when we could not trace it. Answers lead with the point, then the mechanism, then the limitation.

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Question bank

100 questions, mapped to the firms that asked them

Questions
100
Traced to a firm
72
Firms
45
Updated
September 2026
Asked at
All firmsMorningstar12Man Group6Balyasny Asset Management5BlackRock5Franklin Templeton5MSCI5Jefferies4Credit Suisse3Fidelity Investments3Moody's3Perella Weinberg Partners3Point723S&P Global3The Vanguard Group3Wellington Management3Advent International2Apollo Global Management2Bank of America2Carlyle Group2D.E. Shaw2Houlihan Lokey2HSBC2Piper Sandler2Sequoia Capital2State Street2Viking Global Investors2William Blair2AQR Capital Management1Baupost Group1BNY Mellon1Centerview Partners1Coatue Management1Goldman Sachs1Guggenheim Securities1Harris Williams1Insight Partners1Invesco1Mizuho1Moelis & Company1Morgan Stanley1PIMCO1Schroders1Scotiabank1T. Rowe Price1Truist Securities1
Topic
All topicsResearch process9Stock pitch6Company analysis8Investment philosophy5Valuation14Modelling2Portfolio and risk8Macro8Sector knowledge2Accounting8Career and fit12Industry knowledge6Quantitative research1Sector: technology3Sector: consumer1Sector: healthcare1Sector: energy1Sector: financials2Sector: industrials1Case and estimation2
Level
AnyCoreIntermediateHard
Type
AnyTechnicalCaseFitBrainteaserMarket view
Showing 11–11 of 11 · filtered from 100Clear filters
  1. 084What is minority interest and why does it appear in enterprise value?ValuationIntermediatetechnicalBulge bracket IB

    Say this

    It is the portion of a consolidated subsidiary the parent does not own. You add it to enterprise value because the consolidated EBITDA includes 100 percent of that subsidiary, so the numerator must reflect 100 percent too.

    Then walk it

    1. Accounting: if a parent owns more than 50 percent it consolidates the whole subsidiary, taking all of its revenue and EBITDA, then deducts the minority's share of profit below the line.
    2. So consolidated EBITDA overstates what belongs to the parent's shareholders.
    3. To keep the multiple consistent, you add minority interest to enterprise value. Both numerator and denominator then represent the whole enterprise, including the part owned by others.
    4. Use the market value of the minority if the subsidiary is listed. Book value is the fallback and is usually a poor estimate.
    5. The alternative approach is to deconsolidate: strip the subsidiary's EBITDA out and value the parent's stake separately. Cleaner conceptually, more work, and it is what you do when the subsidiary is very different from the core business.
    6. The error to avoid is forgetting it entirely. If you ignore minority interest, a company that consolidates a large partly-owned subsidiary will look artificially cheap on EV/EBITDA, and that appears constantly in emerging market comp sets.

    Where candidates lose it

    Knowing the rule but not the reason. The reason is consistency between numerator and denominator, and being able to state that is what shows you understand enterprise value rather than having memorised the bridge.

    Expect next

    • Should you use book or market value for it?
    • When would you deconsolidate instead?
    • How does this distort a comp set?

Firm tags come from public, anonymous candidate reports on Wall Street Oasis: strong signal, not sworn testimony. Firms are named as the places a question was reported, not as partners of Fin Maverick. Answers are written for this page to show how to think out loud; they are not scripts to recite.