Investment Banking interview preparation
Every question below is either traced to a named firm from a public candidate report, or tagged at desk level when we could not trace it. Answers are written the way you would actually say them out loud — answer first, then the mechanism, then the limitation.
100 questions, mapped to the firms that asked them
- Questions
- 100
- Traced to a firm
- 100
- Firms
- 46
- Updated
- September 2026
047How are current macroeconomic conditions affecting the M&A market?Deutsche BankInvestment Banking · Boston · 2025Perella Weinberg PartnersInvestment Banking · Houston · 2025
Say this
Work the chain from rates to deal volume: the cost and availability of debt sets what sponsors can pay, valuation gaps between buyers and sellers set whether processes clear, and confidence in forecasts sets whether boards will commit at all.
Then walk it
- Rates first. Financing cost sets the sponsor's maximum entry multiple directly, because the deal has to service the debt. Higher rates compress what leverage can support.
- Then the bid-ask spread. Sellers anchor on the multiple they could have got two years ago, buyers price off today's cost of capital. When that gap is wide, processes get pulled and volume falls.
- Then financing availability, which is separate from price. Private credit has taken a large share of leveraged lending from the banks, so deals can now get done even when the syndicated market is shut.
- Then confidence. Boards do not approve transformational deals when they cannot forecast next year. That is why uncertainty hurts volume more than the level of rates does.
- And the composition effect worth naming: in tougher markets you see more all-stock mergers, more minority and structured deals, more corporate carve-outs as companies raise cash, and more take-privates when public multiples fall below private marks.
Where candidates lose it
Answering with stale numbers or none at all. You do not need to be right about the exact policy rate, but you must know roughly where rates sit and one live example of a deal or a sector that reflects it. Update this the week of your interview.
Expect next
- What makes a good IPO environment?
- What would you expect to happen to deal volume next year?
- How has private credit changed leveraged finance?
Reported by candidates at Deutsche Bank (Investment Banking, Boston, 2025); Perella Weinberg Partners (Investment Banking, Houston, 2025). Source: Wall Street Oasis.
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.