Oct 10, 2022

Interview Questions That Stumped Me

Hi there I recently got asked the following questions and my answers were not convincing enough to the interview. So I wanted to come to this forum, share the questions, and see what responses I got:

- Why do we only take off equity interests (equity investments, where you own 20-50%) from the EV-Equity Value bridge calculation if the financials do not include net income attributable to equity interests?

- is a large working capital in itself is a good or bad thing for the business? To answer this question, I wasn't sure if the interviewer was including cash in the working capital calculation.

- Does net working capital definition include cash in the current assets, or does it not? If not, then why does it not?

- With respect to Purchase Price Adjustment, does the NWC peg / calculation include cash in the current assets? Why not?

- When are bank loans private when are they publicly traded

8 Comments

Jahseh's Intern

Wondering the same abt cash in NWC. Seems like it depends on context but I can’t seem to find a straight answer

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Authored by: Certified Investment Banking Professional - 2nd Year AnalystCertified Investment Banking Pro

Intern in IB - Restr

what roles? IB or CF?

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Authored by: Certified Investment Banking Professional - 3rd+ Year AnalystCertified Investment Banking Pro

Intern in IB - Cov

bump!

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Authored by: Certified Investment Banking Professional - 2nd Year AnalystCertified Investment Banking Pro

Smoke Frog

Have no idea, would have failed that too.

I don’t think large working capital is in and of itself a good thing or a bad thing necessarily. I think the interviewer here was just trying to get you to talk about working capital in general and maybe point out things like cash conversion (you want a fast cycle so money isn’t tied up and doing nothing) and some quirks like when receivables are paid quickly and payables are delayed the company is getting ahead.

Typically I count freely available cash in my calc. If not, then maybe you can argue that the point of studying working is to discover if the company is truly generating value on it assets, because maybe a large cash balance could mask the fact the company is actually operating at a negative working cap and would be failing if not for its liquidity buffer.

I don’t think so, but I’m no M&A expert.

Bank loans are very rarely publicly traded, I’m assuming the interviewer was asking you about revolvers and not term loans.

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Authored by: Certified Investment Banking Professional - DirectorCertified Investment Banking Pro

waccyboy

Most Helpful

Equity method of accounting. Your EV will include the 20%-50% interest in the other company because you account for it on your BS. But since it’s not included in Earnings, need to subtract from the numerator so you’re comparing things on an apples to apples basis.

Depends on the company and situation. If current assets are trapped in inventory that wont sell, that’s obviously not good, even though NWC would be high. If you have a high AR balance with tier 1 customers, then yes it can be good have a large WC. But cash is king, so typically you want to get paid as soon as possible and delay your payables.

Cash is not included in NWC peg. Think of the peg as a target for the NWC amount needed to sustain the business at the estimated closing date. If the actual is different than the peg, the new owner would be able to inject / take out capital immediately. The PP adjustment is meant to account for this accordingly.

Can’t help you here.

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Authored by: Certified Investment Banking Professional - 3rd+ Year AssociateCertified Investment Banking Pro

Prospect in PE - Growth

Regarding 3, why would cash not be included in NWC? That doesn't make any sense

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Director in CorpDev

As I am currently engaged in these discussions at the moment on a transaction, I can add some color.

A simple way to think of it is that cash is non-operating. Only focused on the core operating components when thinking of funding needs for the business

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Authored by: Certified Corporate Development Professional - DirectorCertified Corporate Development Pro

CY977

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Interview Questions That Stumped Me

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