Goldman Sachs IBD Interview Technical Question - Asked by Associate

Assume company A has P/E of 8x and company B has P/E of 10x. For simplicity, assume it's a 100% stock transaction and that A buys B. What percentage in synergies would you need to break even? What if the PE Ratios of the companies were reversed?

Answer:

Scenario 1: 1/8 (1-x) = 1/10 ===> 0.2 or 20% Scenario 2: 1/10 (1+x) = 1/8 ====> 0.25 or 25%

My intuition is that for the first scenario is that given the fact that the deal would be the dilutive, the cost of stock must be reduced and would, therefore, account for the needed cost-saving synergies company A has to make to break even. Similarly, the 25% for scenario 2 would account for the revenue synergies company B would have to add to company A in order for it to break even. Am I correct on this? Any help is welcome.

3 Comments
 
Most Helpful

Your question doesn't make sense to me. Probably it was what percentage in synergies would you need for the deal to be accretive.

Company A's yield is 1/8=12.5% Company B's yield is 1/10=10.0%

Needs 2.5% in synergy to be neutral, higher to be accretive.

If PERs were reversed, you wouldn't need any synergy as the transaction is already accretive.

And normally, people would give you numbers of equity value and net income, then ask you how much net income is needed for a deal to be accretive.

 

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