how hard are rx technicals/what to focus on
Want to do RX SA 2027, how fast do you guys think I can learn the technicals if I start now? What should I study?
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I locked in for ~1 month and got interviews at all the top RX shops, a few super days, and one offer. Decided to take a different offer for generalist M&A but that's beside the point.
Should take around 1 month if you cram, but since you're starting early, just recommend making sure you get through everything on RX interviews.com and a few chapters of Moyer. After that, it's really all about digging into RX case studies and making sure you know the ins and outs of a few deals - and further, that you can articulate your "genuine" interest in RX.
Good luck, you'll do great. RX interview processes seemed to be far more meritocratic to me, contrary to what most on this site suggest. Not sure if there is a bias toward target schools when extending offers, but there definitely was not through the networking process.
Also, PJT RX people are complete snobs. If you are a decent human being, I would avoid at all costs, no matter how "prestigious" their group is. (sorry just had to add that)
personally found the EVR rx ppl had more of that vibe and PJT was more laid back, any details?
Don't want to over-generalize since there may be good eggs in there, but met 8 PJT RX people in passing and via interviews/networking, and they had a 100% success rate for me of being absolutely unbearable. Some of the most arrogant and condescending people I met throughout my entire process. Nonetheless crushed when I didn't land there, but so glad I didn't because having lived the hours in IB now and seen the importance of relationships, I would have been out of there very quickly with how much I despised everyone there.
They are the same group of ppl. But obviously high variance depending on who you connected with
What do you think are the biggest/most important concepts that you got drilled on? Or was it pretty luck of the draw?
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cannot agree more on the pjt point
I’m sorry that was your experience with PJT.
That was not consistent with my experience, albeit mine was several years ago so things may have changed.
Not true at all on the PJT Rx point - not sure who you spoke with there but both the junior and senior staff are as laid back as you get in restructuring. Lots of analysts live together, are friends outside of work, its generally a very social culture. They've developed the best school diversity of any of the big restructuring firms (15+ universities represented in their ~20 person analyst program across 2 classes right now based on a quick linkedin search) so not sure how thats snobby compared to the rx shops that almost exclusively hire NYU / Penn hardos.
ok bro, congrats on evr/laz/hl RX!
its not really that deep tbh. Ppl do overrate the difficulties here. Get rx interview guide and grind that. Read the key books everyone read. Would recommend starting with Caesar Palace Coup. Read through bankruptcy filings and do your own little write ups for them. Do some research on LMEs as well and understand how they work. This shit is not rocket science.
Caesars Palace Coup is one of the most underrated reads for RX prep and helps you understand why it’s such a sweaty career in general. Good suggestion.
hows your corporate finance to begin with? do you know why a company might find itself in distress? what's distress exactly and what types of distress are? do you know the 4 main CorpFin ways in which the company can recapitalize itself? when can each one be used/when it can't? when one might more appropriate than the other? manageement-creditor incentives and conflicts? etc.
also, hows your valuation?
lots of people jump into fancy bankruptcy terms like pre-arranged vs. pre-packaged, etc. but can't make a sound argument on why I wouldn't want to buy equity in a distressed capital structure lol (because anyway, what's really a "distressed firm" if you were to consider such firm in a no market information environment and had to assess it yourself?)
Def agree with the sentiment here. The best candidates can apply corp fin concepts to credit / rx context and have an overall strong foundation.
I'm not as impressed by people who can recite Moyer verbatim or get questions on bankruptcy concepts like equitable subordination or adequate protection and fall down on more fundemental stuff.
Honestly, there is so much good info on the thread, I don’t want to add much but maybe a little helpful framework for restructuring is you need to have accounting, EV/EQV intuition, valuation (DCF, multiples, etc), and LBOs down quite well. These are table stakes and it’s doubly nice that you can apply these to any M&A/PE interview as well. From there, what might be helpful is reading through the short BIWS debt primer which gives you an overview of typical debt instruments and their general place in capital structures (found this helpful for building intuition around fixed income structures and technical aspects of a cap stack). At this point, I recommend reading Moyer - back when I when through the processs, Moyer was like a Bible. It has so much information packed into so few pages that calling it a dense read isn’t enough. Most of Moyer will seem like a wild roller coaster, but take notes use ChatGPT wherever you need to build intuition and strap in (Chapter 1-8 is great, but many terms about legal specific frameworks and proceedings are thrown in quite liberally without true explanation). Feel free to not read chapter 10/11, which are more investing focused and slightly outdated. Chapter 12 is the most crucial chapter of Moyer - it pieces all the information of a true bankruptcy process together and sort of acts as a capstone for your reading thus far. From there you know the theory behind financial restructuring - it’s now time to catch up with the RX world. Take some time to read about JCREW (drop down), Serta (uptier), At Home (double dip), and maybe even read Caesar’s Palace (messy and dramatically amazing book). These LMEs a will give you a flavor for the modern way in which restructuring practitioners aim to extend the lifetime of a distressed company. Last party, and probably most important = practice questions. As mentioned elsewhere, restructuringinterciews.com is perfect. Make sure to know sort of 5 broad types of questions: 1) general m&a/PE technicals, 2) in court vs out of court chapter 11 questions, 3) bond math questions 4) subordination questions, and 5) specific restructuring case questions. Practice, practice, practice, and there is no doubt you will be an amazing candidate! Good luck with the process!
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