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
062What makes a company distressed, and why restructuring?EvercoreRestructuring · New York · 2025Rothschild & CoRestructuring · London · 2025
Say this
Distress is when a company cannot service its obligations from its cash flow, or cannot refinance a maturity. Distinguish operational distress, where the business is broken, from financial distress, where a good business carries the wrong capital structure.
Then walk it
- The observable triggers: interest coverage falling toward one, a covenant breach, a maturity wall it cannot refinance, bonds trading at a deep discount to par, and a credit downgrade.
- Financial distress means the operations work but the balance sheet does not. The fix is a balance sheet fix: amend and extend, a debt-for-equity swap, a rights issue, a liability management exercise.
- Operational distress means the business itself is impaired, by a lost contract, structural decline or a broken cost base. No amount of refinancing solves that; you need an operational turnaround or a sale.
- The distinction drives everything about the advice, so I would establish it first in any situation.
- On why restructuring specifically: the work is analytically harder than M&A because you are valuing the enterprise and then allocating it across a capital structure, and the negotiation is multi-party and adversarial. It is also counter-cyclical, which is a genuine reason to want to be in it.
Where candidates lose it
Not separating operational from financial distress. That single distinction is the core intellectual content of restructuring, and a restructuring interviewer will hear immediately whether you have it. Also, do not answer 'why restructuring' with 'because it is counter-cyclical' alone; that reads as cynical.
Expect next
- What is the recovery on each claim?
- Do you understand what we actually do here?
- What were the recent developments in the debt space?
Reported by candidates at Evercore (Restructuring, New York, 2025); Rothschild & Co (Restructuring, London, 2025). Source: Wall Street Oasis.
080How do you value an apple tree?Lincoln InternationalValuation · New York · 2023Rothschild & CoGeneralist · New York · 2026
Say this
As a finite-life cash-generating asset. Forecast the fruit it yields each year, price it, subtract the cost of harvesting, discount over the tree's productive life, and add any terminal value for the land or the timber.
Then walk it
- Cash flows: say 200 kilos of apples a year at a dollar a kilo, so $200 of revenue, less picking, water and treatment of maybe $80. Call it $120 a year.
- Shape the life curve. A young tree yields little, a mature tree plateaus, an old tree declines. So this is not a flat annuity; it ramps, plateaus for twenty or thirty years, then falls away.
- No perpetuity, because the tree dies. Forecast to the end of the productive life and add salvage, which is the firewood or the cleared land.
- Discount rate: this is a risky agricultural cash flow exposed to weather, disease and commodity price. Something well into double digits.
- Then the three cross-checks that make it a valuation answer rather than an arithmetic one. Market: what do orchards sell for per tree or per acre? Replacement: what does it cost to buy and grow a sapling to maturity, including the years of no yield? And the option value: if the land under it is worth more as building plots, the tree is worth negative, because you would pay to remove it. That last point is the answer they are listening for.
Where candidates lose it
Treating it as a perpetuity. It is a finite-life asset, which is the whole reason the question gets asked. And missing that the highest-value use might be cutting it down, which is the insight that the asset's value depends on the alternative use of what it sits on.
Expect next
- What if the land is worth more as development?
- How does this differ from valuing a mine?
- What discount rate would you use?
Reported by candidates at Lincoln International (Valuation, New York, 2023); Rothschild & Co (Generalist, New York, 2026). Source: Wall Street Oasis.
081How would you value your favourite animal?Rothschild & CoGeneralist · New York · 2026
Say this
Pick an animal with an obvious cash flow so the question becomes tractable. A racehorse: value it on prize money, breeding fees and resale, less training and stabling costs, discounted over its career.
Then walk it
- Choose the animal strategically. A racehorse, a dairy cow or a breeding bull all have identifiable revenue. A panda does not, and you will spend the whole answer fighting your own example.
- For a racehorse: expected prize money, weighted by the probability of winning at each grade, plus stud fees after retirement, which for a successful stallion dwarf the racing income.
- Costs: training fees, stabling, vet, insurance, jockey and entry fees. These are substantial and largely fixed, so most horses are value-destructive.
- Finite life with a terminal value: the residual breeding or resale value at the end of the racing career.
- Then the honest framing, which is the point of the question: the expected value is the probability-weighted average of a few enormous outcomes and many zeros. It is an option, not an annuity, so the way to value it is scenario-weighted, and the market price of a yearling at auction is your best cross-check.
Where candidates lose it
Freezing on the absurdity, or picking an animal with no cash flow and then trying to force a DCF onto it. Reframe the question as 'value any finite-life risky asset', choose an example that cooperates, and name your framework before you touch any number.
Expect next
- What is your personal beta?
- How would you value a business with the same payoff shape?
- How would you cross-check your number?
Reported by candidates at Rothschild & Co (Generalist, New York, 2026). Source: Wall Street Oasis.
097What do analysts actually do day to day, beyond financial modelling?Rothschild & CoInvestment Banking · Exeter · 2026
Say this
Most of it is not modelling. It is building and formatting pitch materials, running diligence and data rooms, coordinating between lawyers, accountants and the client, and doing the unglamorous version control that keeps a live process from falling over.
Then walk it
- Materials: pitchbooks, management presentations, information memoranda, board decks. Formatting to house standard, and endless turns of comments from three levels of seniority.
- Research and diligence: comps and precedent screens, industry reads, buyer lists, and managing the data room and the question log on a live deal.
- Process management: scheduling, tracking who has signed which NDA, chasing the lawyers and accountants, and keeping the working group list current. On a live deal this is most of the job.
- Then the modelling, which is the part everyone prepares for and probably a fifth of the time.
- And the part candidates never mention: quality control. Checking that every number in a 60-page deck ties to the model, and that the version being printed is the current one. That is where analysts actually get judged.
- Saying this clearly signals that you know what you are signing up for, which is exactly why the question gets asked.
Where candidates lose it
Describing the job as building models and advising CEOs. It is not, for the first two years, and an interviewer who does the job will hear the fantasy immediately. Naming the administrative reality without sounding unwilling to do it is the winning move.
Expect next
- Does that sound appealing to you?
- How do you handle repetitive work?
- Tell me about a time you fell behind schedule.
Reported by candidates at Rothschild & Co (Investment Banking, Exeter, 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.