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
089Given a 20x P/E, 10x EV/EBITDA, $20 of interest at a 5 percent rate, $200 of market cap and $20 of depreciation, calculate the tax rate.EvercoreMergers and Acquisitions · San Francisco · 2026
Say this
Work backwards from the multiples to build the income statement. Net income is $10, debt is $400, so enterprise value is $600 and EBITDA is $60. EBIT is $40, pre-tax income is $20, so tax is $10 on $20 — a 50 percent rate. That is above any statutory rate, so I would flag that the inputs are inconsistent rather than just hand you the number.
Then walk it
- Net income: market cap $200 at a 20 times P/E means net income of $10.
- Debt: $20 of interest at a 5 percent rate implies $400 of debt.
- Enterprise value: $200 equity plus $400 debt is $600, assuming no cash. At 10 times EV/EBITDA, EBITDA is $60.
- Then EBIT is EBITDA less depreciation, so $60 less $20 is $40. Pre-tax income is EBIT less interest, so $40 less $20 is $20. Net income is $10, so tax is $10 on $20, which is a 50 percent rate.
- I would then flag it: 50 percent is above any statutory rate, which usually means the question contains rounded or inconsistent inputs, or there is a non-operating item I am not being told about.
- The way to handle this live is to lay out the chain clearly, state the answer the arithmetic gives, and then say what would make it plausible: cash on the balance sheet would lower enterprise value and therefore EBITDA, and minority interest or a one-off charge below the line would change the bridge.
Where candidates lose it
Either freezing on the arithmetic or reporting an absurd tax rate with a straight face. The test is whether you can chain multiples backwards into an income statement, and whether you have the judgement to flag an implausible output rather than just handing it over.
Expect next
- What if there were cash on the balance sheet?
- Which assumption are you least comfortable with?
- Redo it with $100 of cash.
Reported by candidates at Evercore (Mergers and Acquisitions, San Francisco, 2026). 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.