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
039Would an increase in price or an increase in volume be more preferable when you are trying to deliver synergies?LazardMergers and Acquisitions · New York · 2026
Say this
Price, almost always. A price increase drops straight to the bottom line with no incremental cost, while a volume increase carries variable cost, working capital and often capacity investment with it.
Then walk it
- A dollar of price is a dollar of gross profit. A dollar of volume is a dollar times the gross margin, so at a 40 percent margin you need two and a half times the revenue to get the same profit.
- Volume also consumes cash. More units means more inventory and receivables, and eventually more capacity, so free cash flow lags the revenue.
- Price is also faster. You can reprice a portfolio in a quarter; winning share takes years.
- The counterargument, and I would raise it: price synergies are much harder to defend to regulators, because raising prices post-merger is precisely what antitrust authorities are watching for. Volume and cost synergies are safer ground in a filing.
- Price is also fragile. It invites competitive response and it can accelerate customer churn, so the durability is lower even though the immediate flow-through is better.
Where candidates lose it
Answering only with the margin arithmetic. The regulatory dimension is what makes this an M&A question rather than a maths question, and at a firm like Lazard that is the half they are listening for.
Expect next
- How would you defend price synergies to a regulator?
- Which synergies do you actually put in the model?
- Why do most deals miss their synergy targets?
Reported by candidates at Lazard (Mergers and Acquisitions, New York, 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.