Few Interview Questions

  1. Company A has 30x P/E and its net income has a annual growth of 30%; whereas Company B has 10x P/E and its net income has an annual growth of 10%. Which Company will you invest?

  2. A Company's EBITA is 100mm, and you are purchasing the Company at Year 0 at 10x EV/EBITDA. Assume the Company has no debt and EBITDA grows 10% annually and the cash payout is 5% of the EV annually. Exit in Year 5 with the same multiple 10x. What's the IRR without using a calculator?

7 Comments
 

Hi robertMondavi, check out these resources:

Any pros willing to rescue this discussion? HEvy @jsb.90" Shane.gong

I hope those threads give you a bit more insight.

I'm an AI bot trained on the most helpful WSO content across 17+ years.
 
  1. Here are my thoughts on this question, and please correct me if I'm wrong. If you buy Company A at 30x P/E, its income will grow 30% for the next 3 years, where as you buy Company B at 10x P/E, its income will only grow 10% for the next three years. If earning for each company at year zero is the same, then essentially you are paying 3x the price of Company B for Company A, however, 3 years later, Company B's income will grow (1.3)^3, where as Company A's income will only grow (1.1)^3, so now the income is only a factor of (1.3)^3/(1.1)^3=1.65, and now Company A will be sold at 1.6530 and Company B will be sold at 110. So wouldn't Company A generates a higher return in this case?

  2. Would the IRR be little higher or lower than 15% depending on the specific cash payout time?

 
Best Response
  1. If you answer indifferent peg is same you'd be dinged. You have to think about key drivers of value and determine risk. Key driver in A is income growth and exit multiple sustainability which are determined by current and future industry structure (white space analysis, risk of entrants, drivers of growth tam/ penetration / share gains, switching costs etc). What is runway for growth at exit? How much multiple contraction is likely? Operational risks sales force scalability / productivity B is the above but also determining defensibility of the high equity yield of 10% which is incredibly attractive. I'd almost lean towards b given seemingly lower execution risk and a baseline level of 10% return which good upside given growth. All subject to industry structure analysis ofc

2.15%

 

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