Investment Banking Coverage/M&A - Summer Internship

First step was generic cognitive assessments which take less than an hour and are quite simple. Then networking is incredibly important, you want to connect with your school's core team or the non-core team whichever applicable in order to get a referral to begin the process. From there, I received and initial phone screener (which was actually a screener disguised as a networking call). Afterwards, I got two back to back 1st rounds 20 minutes each. Each of these were pretty technical and I will list the questions:
• 2 companies have same revenue/ebitda, but there implied EV is different. How can this be?
• What is Wacc and give the formula
• 3 main valuation methods
• What are the downsides to each of these?
• What is Net working capital?
• What happens to free cash flow when nwc goes up?

• (insert my business) business, how does this connect to investment banking? What are some skills you gained?
• Tell me about your internships
• What was a project you worked on?
• what is an M&A deal or IPO you’ve been following?
• What was the purchase method?
• Was there any risk of leverage?
• What is the potential downside of this acquisition?
• 4 valuation methodologies
• Rank them based on highest to lowest
• Explain control premium
• Why might comparables be higher than precedent transactions
• Why is LBO floor price?
• Walk me through an LBO
• Tell me about the levers that a company can affect throughout the holding period to increase the Moic and or IRR
• Tell me about MOIC and IRR
• How are they different?
• Ebitda to EV
• Why subtract cash?

After these two I actually waited from late January till late February without a response to sneak into their last March Superday. The superday consisted of 2 back to back 30 minute interviews with very senior bankers. These were much more behavioral i.e. Tell me about a time you were uncertain or Tell me about a team that went wrong. I also got some light technicals such as a capital structure question and what makes a good LBO candidate. I got a quick brainteaser at the end as well. Overall I think Barclays really puts a huge emphasis on fit and it shows especially once you start talking to the people at the firm including your interviewers.