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
019Why do you unlever and relever beta, and why does it matter?Harris WilliamsInvestment Banking · Los Angeles · 2025
Say this
Observed beta reflects both the business risk and the leverage of each peer. You unlever to strip out their capital structures so you are comparing pure business risk, then relever at your target's structure.
Then walk it
- Pull raw betas for the peer set. Each one is contaminated by that company's own debt load.
- Unlever each: asset beta equals equity beta divided by one plus one minus tax times debt over equity. Now you have pure business risk.
- Take the median or mean of the unlevered betas. Median is safer because one over-levered peer can drag a mean badly.
- Relever at your target's capital structure, or its target structure if you expect it to change.
- It matters because skipping it means you have imported someone else's leverage into your cost of equity. In an LBO, where structure changes by design, getting this wrong makes the whole discount rate meaningless.
Where candidates lose it
Knowing the formula but not the purpose. If asked 'why does it matter', the answer is comparability of business risk. Say that first, then the mechanics.
Expect next
- Would you use median or mean of the unlevered betas?
- What is the beta of a slot machine?
- How would you get a beta for a private company?
Reported by candidates at Harris Williams (Investment Banking, Los Angeles, 2025). Source: Wall Street Oasis.
083How would a college increase its revenue?Harris WilliamsInvestment Banking · Richmond · 2018
Say this
Price, volume, mix, and new revenue lines. Raise net tuition by discounting less, grow enrolment, shift mix toward full-fee and postgraduate students, and monetise the assets that sit idle.
Then walk it
- Price: the lever is usually the discount rate, not the headline tuition. Most institutions discount heavily; recovering a few points of net tuition is worth more than a sticker price rise and is less visible.
- Volume: more students, but constrained by capacity and by admissions standards, since taking weaker students damages the brand that supports the price.
- Mix is the highest-return lever. International and out-of-state students pay multiples of the domestic rate. Postgraduate and professional programmes carry better margins. Executive education has almost no marginal cost against existing faculty.
- New lines: online programmes that break the capacity constraint entirely, summer and short courses that use the campus in the off-season, conference and event hire, and licensing the brand.
- And the asset side: parking, retail on campus, research commercialisation and licensing, plus the fundraising engine, since alumni giving is a genuine revenue line that responds to investment.
- The reason mix beats price and volume: operating leverage. Faculty cost is already committed, so an incremental full-fee student in an existing class is almost entirely margin.
Where candidates lose it
Listing ideas without ranking them by margin impact. The interviewer wants commercial prioritisation. Naming operating leverage as the reason mix wins turns a brainstorm into an analysis.
Expect next
- Which would you do first?
- What is the risk of the online strategy?
- How would you value the business after those changes?
Reported by candidates at Harris Williams (Investment Banking, Richmond, 2018). 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.