Summer Associate

On-campus recruiting process at at T15 MBA program. First round was in-person on campus, second and third were Zoom. First three rounds were all with associates: conversational, questions included:
-"tell me about yourself"
-"why banking"-
"why Guggenheim"
-"what are your top groups and why"-
-"any trends you've been following in the market/your top group" (this was right after a few major headlines about the Nvidia/Intel investment, the agreements between the US govt and Nvidia/AMD about exporting AI chips to China, the Oracle/OpenAI deal, the US govt buying a stake in Intel, etc, and all of these came up in chats - being on top of current events was very important)
-"any deals you've been following in your top group" (need to know metrics such as implied valuation, multiples, consideration mix, premium, etc, and strategic rationale/big picture implications)
-time for Q&A at the end of every chat

4th round was in-person in NYC and was a technical screen, questions were largely from the 400Q guide and included:
-$10 depreciation
-can a company have negative earnings and positive cash flows
-why do we use EBITDA over net income
-full EV formula (equity value + debt - cash + preferred stock + NCI + unfunded pension liabilities + capital leases - other non-operating investments + tax benefit on NOLs)
-how do you account for convertible bonds when calculating EV
-how do you calculate WACC
-how do you calculate cost of equity
-how to find beta for a private company, how to unlever/relever beta?
-what's one way to calculate cost of debt
-walk from revenue to FCFF to FCFE
-a high P/E company acquires a low P/E company; is this accretive or dilutive (consideration wasn't specified, so had to address this in my answer)
-what are breakeven synergies
-what are some reasons you might acquire a company
-rank from highest to lowest: EV/FCFF, EV/EBITDA, EV/EBIT
-two manufacturing firms are identical in every way except one has debt on the BS and the other doesn't; which has a higher WACC
-when a firm has no debt, what does their WACC equal (cost of equity)
-what would have a higher impact on a DCF: 1% decrease in discount rate or a 1% increase in growth rate?
-what's the different between an asset purchase, equity purchase, and a section 338
-company purchases $800m of land with 50% PIK debt, 50% cash, interest is 10%, tax rate is 25%, walk me through the three statements Y0/Y1/Y2
-3 valuation methods? what's another? what's another? (know at least 7, including the main 3 and LBO)
-walk me through a DCF and LBO
-how can a sponsor boost value in an LBO
-pen and paper: Company A has the following metrics: Share Price $10, Diluted Shares Outstanding 100, Pre-Tax Income $100, Tax Rate 50%, Net Income 50, Debt Interest Rate 10%. Company B has the following metrics: Share Price $5, Diluted Shares Outstanding 100, Pre-Tax Income $50, Tax Rate 40%. Deal is 50% cash, 50% stock, at a 20% premium. Is it accretive or dilutive? How many new shares were issued?

There was a deep cut made after the first technical round.

5th and 6th rounds were in-person in NYC and started to be with more senior bankers (VPs and MDs). Conversational, "why banking", "why Guggenheim", etc, but with some behaviorals added in (what makes you think you have what it takes to do this job, tell me about a time you dealt with conflict in the workplace, what do you think Guggenheim could be doing better, how will you approach the relationship with your analysts as a new associate, etc).

Waiting to see if I receive a superday invite or not.