PE Technicals & situational questions

Hey all,

Came across below list of PE questions that I'm not sure what the answers would be, would appreciate peeps jumping in:

1. You have accessed a data room for a company you are analyzing. You see a file that outlines, for the past 5 years, month by month projected budget against versus actual performance. You see that, consistently for all 5 of the years, from January to October, the business outperforms its projections. For November and December, the company misses its budget by a large margin. What is going on?

2. A company is trading at 10x, and you acquire it in a take-private LBO at 12x. You project an exit at 12x. What does this imply?

3. If you could choose to have $10 million of incremental revenue, $10 million of incremental cost savings, or $10 million of decreased working capital needs, which would you choose, and why? o What if it was a one-time event, or a recurring event? What if it was toward the beginning or the end of a company’s investment horizon? How would these factors change your answer?

4. Suppose I am looking at a company that makes red tennis racquets and generates $100m of revenue. If I look at the balance sheet at 12/31/2009, what are the accounts receivable?