Private Equity interview preparation
Buyout, growth and credit. Every question is either traced to a named firm from a public candidate report, or tagged at desk level when we could not trace it. Answers lead with the point, then the mechanism, then the limitation.
100 questions, mapped to the firms that asked them
- Questions
- 100
- Traced to a firm
- 83
- Firms
- 40
- Updated
- September 2026
010Here are the financial statements of three companies with no names. Tell me what type of business each one is.HPS Investment PartnersSpecial Situations · London · 2021
Say this
Read the structure, not the numbers. Gross margin, asset intensity and working capital give away the business model almost immediately, and each combination points to a specific type of company.
Then walk it
- High gross margin, negligible inventory, large deferred revenue, heavy R&D and sales spend: software.
- Low gross margin, high inventory, high fixed assets, thin net margin: manufacturing, distribution or retail. Split them by inventory turns and receivables. Retail collects immediately so receivables are near zero; distribution carries both inventory and receivables.
- Very high fixed assets, high depreciation, high debt, stable margins: utilities, telecom or infrastructure.
- Large receivables, no inventory, high staff cost as a share of revenue: a services or consulting business.
- Negative working capital, meaning payables exceed receivables and inventory: a business collecting from customers before paying suppliers, so restaurants, supermarkets, subscriptions or airlines.
- The systematic way to run it out loud: common-size everything as a percentage of revenue, look at the three biggest lines, compute working capital days, then name the model and say what evidence drove the conclusion. Getting the reasoning visible matters more than being right on all three.
Where candidates lose it
Guessing silently. This tests whether you can read a set of accounts structurally. Narrate the ratios you are computing and what each rules out; the process is being graded more than the identification.
Expect next
- Which of them would you lend to?
- Which would make the best LBO?
- What working capital profile would you want as an owner?
Reported by candidates at HPS Investment Partners (Special Situations, London, 2021). 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.