How to Nail the 48-Hour Case Study?
Hi All,
I am going to be working on a 48-hour case study for a PE process. They are providing me a CIP and I need to generate a few slides on i) recommendation, ii) investment strengths / weaknesses, iii) valuation, iv) view on drivers for growth and v) areas of due diligence
First time doing a case study like this and have a few questions:
1) Any general advice on how to nail this thing?
2) How is the 48-hour case study different than, for example, a 4 hour model + memo test where you also receive a CIP. I assume there are greater expectations for 48-hour case study, but what are those expectations? Just building a more comprehensive model or showing more "thoughtfulness"? How do I make a more comprehensive output if I still only have a few slides to outline everything?
3) For those who have reviewed case studies before, what makes one stand out? How does one differentiate themselves?
4) I have some time before I have to take the case study? Best way to prep? Any precedent examples? Anyone willing to review this thing?
Is this for a 2026 associate role? Is off cycle starting already?
2) For the model, typically in a 4-hr test you drive everything off growth % (for rev) and % of rev (for costs), and you usually make 1 single base case which is a haircut version of the sell-side case, which should be more in-line with trends. For a 2-day case, you can build a basic revenue build (e.g., price x quantity, etc), and include basic upside or downside cases. You should have better justifications for the major drivers. These don't have to be "thoughtful," but more explicitly outlined -- for instance, revenue growth assumption based on historical volume growth, while assuming some pricing decline from competition. If you have the data, you can also show stuff like implied market share or benchmark growth to the market. Basically, just CYA your assumptions explicitly, nothing too complicated.
For the memo, other than outlining the basic risks and highlights, you should probably pick 1 risk and 1 highlight to go deep on, and you can stand out by drawing conclusions from your model. For example, if the company mentions how M&A could be a great upside, you can build this in super basically (add a line for acquired EBITDA, assumed multiple, and assumed debt financing, done), and then you can mention how much upside M&A can represent. Conversely, there's likely 1-2 "biggest" risks of the investment, so the key is to identify what you perceive those to be, and then model that out appropriately. If, for example, you're really worried about a bunch of new entrants coming to take share, you can represent this via major price concessions. Or, perhaps it's customer concentration with customer that represents 20% of revenue - you can grow the remaining 80% of revenue like you normally would, then decline that 20% customer over time, which should decrease your overall growth rate. Stuff like this. Not rocket science by any means, but it demonstrates that you've tried to reflect and tie together the qualitative AND quantitative parts of the case, which is hard to do in a 4 hour case.
Output-wise, sensitivities are your friend, especially if you built in a couple of operational drivers. You could sensitize pricing risk above, and hey, maybe it's not that sensitive (which kind of a bs analysis but you get the idea), you can show this and say that this is somewhat mitigated. Alternatively on that M&A front, you could show M&A at different multiples and then even no M&A at all, see what that does to the model. If the company is solid with no M&A and conservative assumptions, then that seems pretty good!
Also, have a diligence plan for each risk, especially if the model is sensitive to it. This could just mean "analyze customer retention" or some BS....
3) See above. Not worried about the most complicated model ever. Looking for basic modelling skills (can you build debt schedule), some thought (1-2 operational drivers), and explicitly laid out thinking.
4) If you're really worried, just make a basic LBO template in advance. Then you just paste in the financials from the CIP and fuck around from there. Even if you don't, basic debt paydown structure and LBO mechanics should only take like an hour or so.
I have a few with CIMs, feel free to DM if interested
Interested!
dm'd
Hello! You mentioned you have some CIMs / case studies that you are possibly happy to share/trade, are you still able to do that? Please let me know as I have a case study coming up next week. I have materials as well to share
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