Pontus Capital Interview Questions

2 total interview insight submissions
Interview Experience (42%)

The Interview Experience is a score from 1 star (very negative) to 5 stars (very positive) generated based on the Interview Insights at this company.

The number you see in the middle of the doughnut pie chart is the simple average of these scores. If you hover over the various sections of the donut, you will see the % breakdown of each score given.

The percentile score in the title is calculated across the entire Company Database and uses an adjusted score based on Bayesian Estimates (to account for companies that have few interview insights). Simply put, as a company gets more reviews, the confidence of a "true score" increases so it is pulled closer to its simple average and away from the average of the entire dataset.

3.5
  • Very Negative
  • Negative
  • Neutral
  • Positive
  • Very Positive
Interview Difficulty (77%)

The Interview Difficulty is a score ranging from very difficult (red) to very easy (green) generated based on the Interview Insights at this company.

The number you see in the middle of the doughnut pie chart is the simple average of these scores. The higher the number, the more difficult the interviews on average. If you hover over the various sections of the doughnut, you will see the % breakdown of each score given.

The percentile score in the title is calculated across the entire Company Database and uses an adjusted score based on Bayesian Estimates (to account for companies that have few interview insights). Simply put, as a company gets more insights, the confidence of a "true score" increases so it is pulled closer to its simple average and away from the average of the entire data set.

3.5
  • Very Easy
  • Easy
  • Average
  • Difficult
  • Very Difficult

Interviews at Pontus Capital

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Job Title
Group/Division
Location
Experience
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Intern
Year 2013
Job Title Intern
Group/Division Mergers and Acquisitions
Location La Jolla
Experience
Neutral
Difficulty
Average
Intern
Year 2013
Job Title Intern
Group/Division Mergers and Acquisitions
Location La Jolla
Experience
Positive
Difficulty
Difficult

Interview Questions & Answers - Pontus Capital Examples

Acquisition Intern Interview - Mergers and Acquisitions

Anonymous interview candidate in La Jolla
Interviewed: October 2013
Date Submitted: Oct 19, 2013
Outcome
No Offer
Interview Source
College / University / On Campus Recruiting
Length of Process
Less than 1 month
Application
Phone Interview
Interview
Reached out through campus services, company reached out to me via email, scheduled an interview time. Phone interview was standard and consisted of resume, technical and brain teaser questions. Brain teasers were tricky so practice mental math with large numbers.
Interview Questions
How many zeros are in a factorial of one hundred?
Involved breaking the factorials into groups and it turns out it would be roughly 30.
8 black and 8 white marbles, how do you set it up so you have a higher chance of getting more black marbles when you have two bags? What to do was easy (one black marble in bag only and the remaining fifteen in the other bag) but the probability explanation was a little harder.
Sample Answer

Summer Acquisitions Associate Interview - Mergers and Acquisitions

Anonymous employee in La Jolla
Interviewed: March 2013
Date Submitted: Aug 26, 2013
Outcome
Accepted Offer
Interview Source
College / University / On Campus Recruiting
Length of Process
Less than 1 month
Application
Phone Interview
1 on 1 Interview
Group Interview
Interview
Originally applied through schools career board. Was initially contacted by a current intern to arrange a phone interview with the VP of Acquisitions. During the phone interview, was asked basic technical questions, such as "walk me through the affects of overstating depreciation expense on the three financial statements and how to reverse these errors" and "while performing a DCF analysis on two exactly same firms, what could cause a difference in valuation amounts?. Phone interview last 30 minutes. Was e-mailed by current intern to come in for in-person interview. This turned out to be a group interview of 3 other candidates. Was first asked to take a grammar quiz, similar to GMAT reading comprehension questions. Then was asked to do a basic intelligence quiz (pattern recognition and basic arithmetic). Final was a simplistic Excel test, which consisted formatting and absolute reference tasks. (Was asked to build a multiplication table using a single formula and add values across multiple worksheets). Next was one on one interviews with current employees to get an idea of fit. Only 1 question was scripted, which was "what is your greatest weakness?"
Interview Questions
What is your biggest weakness, if you have one?

"Everyone has weaknesses, anyone you tells you differently is lying. Mine is I can be too detail oriented. Sometimes I will lose the forest for all the trees. This is a weakness I've struggle with my academic and professional life, but have continuously worked to keep the high level perspective in mind"
If a company has a cap rate of 10% and rental payments are currently $100,000, what are the proceeds to the seller of a sale lease-back transaction?

Thankfully I did quite a bit of research before the interview. Cap rates (capitalization rates) are based on a firms credit. The worse the credit, the higher the cap rate. It is the inverse of a multiple. For example: a cap rate of 10% and rent of $100,000 implies the proceeds are $1,000,000: ($100,000 / 0.10) or ((1 / 0.10) * $100,000)
Sample Answer