PE Case Studies

Many young professionals undergoing the PE recruiting process will go through a case study at some point in the interview process. While other interviews with a firm will be largely behavioral with a few technical or investment acumen questions thrown in to test your knowledge in these areas, the case study is your opportunity to show the firm you are capable of performing the technical duties of an analyst or associate and that even if you aren’t perfect, you can identify and learn from mistakes during a debrief discussion. It is also a chance for the firm to test you on how intelligently you can speak about investment assumptions, how flexible your models are, and how easy it is to change inputs. Since you generally have several hours to a few days to complete these types of case studies, firms expect to see a great amount of thought and attention to detail in your submission.

When we refer to a case study here, I am referring to a situation in which you are given a CIM of a sample company and asked to create an LBO model as well as formulate thoughts on this company as a potential investment opportunity given what is presented in the CIM. Each firm administers the test differently, but this is generally the “hardest” type of case study you’ll see across firms, hence why we focus on it for the purpose of this article. These tips and learnings can also be applied to shorter-form case studies.

While the most obvious tip is to prepare and practice as much as possible for this type of case study, here are some general tips about how to effectively read a CIM, build a clean model, and present your conclusion on whether the company would be a good investment or not.