Investment Banking interview preparation

Questions

100

Traced to a firm

100

Firms

46

Updated

September 2026

Asked at

All firmsTSTruist Securities10Rothschild & Co8Centerview Partners7CSCredit Suisse7HWHarris Williams6Houlihan Lokey6Lazard6Mizuho6Barclays5Citi5Deutsche Bank5Evercore5Moelis & Company5MSMorgan Stanley5Piper Sandler5RCRBC Capital Markets5Goldman Sachs4Nomura4TD Securities4Bank of America3GSGuggenheim Securities3J.P. Morgan3Jefferies3Moody's3Perella Weinberg Partners3WPWarburg Pincus3WBWilliam Blair3HSBC2Lincoln International2Scotiabank2TPTPG2UBS2Wells Fargo Securities2Advent International1Apollo Global Management1Bain Capital1Balyasny Asset Management1BLBlackRock1BPBNP Paribas1General Atlantic1Invesco1Morningstar1PIMCO1STSociété Générale1SSState Street1WMWellington Management1

Topic

All topicsAccounting14Valuation21M&A10Markets and deals10Capital markets3LBO8Leveraged finance3Restructuring2Credit3Debt capital markets2Capital structure2Case and estimation11Brainteasers6Fit5

Level

AnyCoreIntermediateHard

Type

AnyTechnicalCaseBrainteaserFitMarket view

1. 021What are the main valuation methodologies, with the pros and cons of each?ValuationCoretechnicalCenterview PartnersInvestment Banking · Menlo Park · 2026Piper SandlerInvestment Banking · New York · 2026InvescoAsset Management · New York · 2023

   Say this

   Three core ones: comparable companies, precedent transactions and DCF. Comps tell you what the market pays today, precedents tell you what buyers paid including control, and a DCF tells you what the cash flows are worth on your own assumptions.

   Then walk it

   1. Trading comps: fast, market-based, easy to defend. But no two companies are truly comparable, and if the whole sector is mispriced your answer inherits that.
   2. Precedent transactions: captures the control premium and what strategic buyers actually paid. But deals are stale, each had its own circumstances, and disclosure is patchy.
   3. DCF: the only method grounded in the actual economics, and it forces you to state your assumptions. But it is enormously sensitive to WACC and terminal value, so it can be made to say almost anything.
   4. Situational ones sit alongside: LBO analysis for a floor value a sponsor would pay, sum of the parts for conglomerates, NAV for asset-heavy or real estate businesses, and dividend discount for banks.
   5. In practice you show all of them as a football field and argue for a range, because the overlap between methods is more persuasive than any single number.

   Where candidates lose it

   Listing the three and stopping when the question explicitly asked for pros and cons. Also, claiming DCF is 'the most accurate'. It is the most theoretically sound and the most easily manipulated, and saying both is what makes you sound credible.

   Expect next

   • Rank the four methodologies from highest to lowest value and explain why.
   • Which would you weight most for a company like this?
   • When would you not use a DCF at all?

   Reported by candidates at Centerview Partners (Investment Banking, Menlo Park, 2026); Piper Sandler (Investment Banking, New York, 2026); Invesco (Asset Management, New York, 2023). Source: Wall Street Oasis.

2. 034How would you value a pre-revenue healthcare company?ValuationHardsuperdayPiper SandlerInvestment Banking · New York · 2026Moelis & CompanyMergers and Acquisitions · Los Angeles · 2022

   Say this

   A risk-adjusted DCF built asset by asset. For each drug candidate, forecast peak sales after launch, discount back, then multiply by the cumulative probability of clinical and regulatory success for that phase.

   Then walk it

   1. Value each pipeline asset separately. A Phase III candidate and a preclinical one are completely different risks and cannot share a discount rate.
   2. For each asset: estimate the addressable patient population, penetration, price and duration of therapy to build peak sales, then shape the ramp and the patent cliff.
   3. Apply probability of technical and regulatory success. Industry benchmarks run roughly 60 to 70 percent from Phase III, around 30 percent from Phase II, and low single digits from preclinical.
   4. Discount at a high rate, often 10 to 15 percent, and net off the cash burn until launch. Then sum the assets and add the cash on the balance sheet.
   5. Cross-check against what the market pays. EV per pipeline asset by phase, precedent biotech M&A, and the last private round. And say plainly that the answer is a wide range, because a single readout can move it by a factor of three.

   Where candidates lose it

   Reaching for revenue multiples when there is no revenue, or building one DCF for the whole company. The technique is per-asset and probability-weighted. If you cannot name roughly what a Phase II success rate looks like, you have not prepared the sector.

   Expect next

   • What probability would you use for a Phase II asset?
   • How do you handle the patent cliff?
   • What would you cross-check this against?

   Reported by candidates at Piper Sandler (Investment Banking, New York, 2026); Moelis & Company (Mergers and Acquisitions, Los Angeles, 2022). 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.