Deal Discussion Framework

The most common mistake that people make when discussing deals is they jump right into the details without setting the stage. Remember, your objective here is to successfully pass the interview by demonstrating your competency. The most important thing is effective communication. The second most important thing is to show that you have good experience. A few generic pointers:

1 - You can talk about deals that didn’t close or are still in process. You just need to be more vague. Statements such as: “The company is a service provider to hospitals and automates key data analytics.” This doesn’t violate any confidentiality but tells the interviewer enough.

2 - Set the stage with the overall deal dynamics and your specific roles / responsibilities. Things such as: “My bank was retained to evaluate either a sale to a strategic buyer or an IPO. Our team pitched and won the mandate back in August and have been running a dual IPO/Sale track since then. The deal is being led by my team, which consists of our MD, a VP, an Associate, and myself, with some interaction from time-to-time by our coverage bankers. I’ve principally been responsible for building the financial model, preparing presentation materials, managing the dataroom, etc.”

3 - You can ask for guidance to help assess whether they care about certain details. “Would it be helpful if I were to explain the key differentiators of the business and the buyer’s investment thesis? Would it be helpful if I walked you through how I constructed the model?” Every interviewer has their own personal list of things they care about so I find it helpful.

4 - Don’t be negative. Things such as “my associate is incredibly lazy so he passes all the work down to me” will hurt you. If you want to get the point across that you’ve been doing all the work yourself, you should say: “my associate has been stretched incredibly thin with multiple staffing, so I’ve done my best to take the majority of the burden off his/her shoulders.”