Every investment bank will try to tell you that theyre unique. Theyll say that they run lean deal teams, swing for large mandates, and really emphasize culture and fit. Most of the time – as you no doubt already know – this isnt really true.
Sure, Evercore is known for having a less intense culture than Moelis. But the truth is that the differences are usually pretty small and depend on a lot of things, like which MDs you work with most of the time. So some analysts and associates will have a better experience at Moelis than Evercore and vice versa.
Among the investment banks, Centerview Partners is probably the singular one that really is quite differentiated. At the end of the day, banking is banking, but Centerview has its own way of doing things.
The truth is that not everyone can join Centerview, especially at the analyst level, as we talked about in the first question. But if youre interested in restructuring, dont shy away from Centerview.
Compared to HL, Centerview doesn’t do a lot of RX deals, but they do have a knack for getting some of the biggest and toughest ones. If you end up joining Centerview, and want to get RX exposure, youll get more than enough. There will also be interviews if you want to work for a top distressed or special situations shop.
Note: While Centerview used to offer a generalist program across M&A and RX, theyve recently changed this. Now Centerview brings on a few “Restructuring Majors” each summer to work within the dedicated RX group. While they’ll be busy with RX deals, they will still get some M deals in. These few people are the only ones who really know a lot about both RX and M.
Below are some of the top Centerview Partners questions you should prepare for. The format of the interview is the same as any other banking interview, but sometimes you will be asked more general questions, like question six.
When I write up the most common interview questions for other high-end boutiques, I don’t usually include the “Why this bank?” question. This is because the answer is usually just a general one like “they have a lot of flow” or “they seem to have a great culture.”
When it comes to Centerview, though, you should really think about why you want to work there and be ready with a good answer.
Of course you already know this, but Centerview has a three-year analyst program, and they expect you to stay for the whole thing. Also, there are great ways to leave after the analyst program, but most people stay and become associates, which is very uncommon at top EBs. It doesnt hurt when they offer you $200,000 to stick around, I suppose.
If you’re in an interview, you should never say that you don’t want to be a career banker. But no one at Moelis or PJT thinks you’re going to stay after your time as an analyst. But thats just not the case at Centerview. They want people who are leaning towards being career bankers and want to grow up within the bank.
In the first part of your answer, you should make it clear that you know the analyst program is a little different from other banks’ programs, but that you see that as a good thing because you want to stay on as an associate and beyond.
Note: You won’t have to follow up on the answer you give in an interview (especially if it’s for a summer analyst job!) But if youre looking to exit to the buy-side in 12-16 months, then you really should look elsewhere.
After this, you can give any additional generic reasons you have (e. g. , great culture, lean deal teams, large mandates, etc. ). All of those other reasons are good, but you should focus on the first two because they are the most important ones.
Landing an interview at Centerview Partners is a major accomplishment As one of the most prestigious investment banks, known for its work on complex, high-stakes deals, the competition for spots is fierce
So if you’ve got an interview lined up, congratulations! But the hard work doesn’t stop there. With Centerview’s notoriously rigorous recruiting process, you’ll need to arrive fully prepared to showcase your skills.
In this comprehensive guide, I’ll walk you through the key questions to expect and proven strategies to master them With the right preparation, you’ll be ready to ace your Centerview interview
Overview of Centerview’s Interview Process
The interview process at Centerview typically involves:
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Initial Screening: Behavioral and technical questions to assess basic qualifications.
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Second Round More in-depth technical and fit questions
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Superday: A full day of 4-6 back-to-back interviews, testing technical, strategic thinking, and communication skills under pressure.
Throughout, you can expect a mix of technical, behavioral, brainteaser, and case-style questions. Interviews range from informal chats to highly technical quantitative sessions. The overall experience is challenging, so thorough preparation is key.
The Most Common Centerview Interview Questions
Let’s dive into the specific questions you’re likely to encounter and proven strategies to master them:
1. Walk me through a detailed DCF analysis.
This is one of the most common technical questions, assessing your financial modeling skills and valuation capabilities.
Structure your answer in a logical step-by-step manner:
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Explain how you’d calculate unlevered free cash flows, starting with revenue projections based on historical performance, market data, and management guidance.
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Discuss your approach to estimating expenses, taxes, capex, and working capital needs to arrive at projected EBITDA and unlevered free cash flows.
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Outline how you’d determine the appropriate discount rate using WACC based on cost of debt, cost of equity, and optimal capital structure.
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Walk through discounting projected free cash flows and calculating terminal value to determine enterprise value. Discuss sensible exit multiple assumptions.
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Describe how you’d check your valuation output using relative valuation methods like comparable companies or precedent transactions.
Demonstrate your versatility: Highlight your experience building DCF models across diverse industries and situations like M&A, restructuring, capital raising, etc.
2. How would you go about analyzing whether a company is undervalued or overvalued?
This aims to assess your financial analysis skills and strategic thinking.
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First, emphasize using a variety of quantitative and qualitative methods to develop an informed perspective on valuation, rather than relying on any single metric.
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Discuss analyzing valuation multiples of comparable companies and precedent transactions to benchmark the company’s current trading levels. Compare on metrics like P/E, EV/EBITDA, P/B across several years to identify trends.
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Explain reviewing DCF analysis to assess upside/downside based on projected performance. Outline assessing key value drivers and risks in projections.
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Highlight importance of understanding reasons behind valuation disconnects. Analyze factors like market sentiment, competitive dynamics, new product launches, systemic macroeconomic trends that could impact the company’s performance versus market expectations.
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Conclude by describing how you’d synthesize insights from quantitative and qualitative analyses into a recommendation on whether the company is significantly under/overvalued. Discuss how this would inform your investment recommendation.
3. How do you go about building 3-statement projection models?
This tests your grasp of accounting and modeling best practices.
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Walk through starting with historical financial statements and normalizing for any one-time items to establish a baseline.
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Discuss building integrated projections for key value drivers – revenue, margins, expenses, taxes, capex, depreciation, working capital – based on historical performance, management guidance, and competitive dynamics.
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Describe linking 3-statement projections, ensuring balance sheet accounts flow from the income statement and cash flow statement.
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Highlight incorporating sensitivities and scenario analysis based on risks and upside drivers.
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Emphasize basics like maintaining clean formatting, labeling assumptions, cell linking, and checks for errors. Conclude by discussing how you’d analyze model outputs to derive insights and recommendations.
4. How would you value a distressed company?
This aims to assess your restructuring valuation skills.
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Explain starting with Liquidation Value Analysis to determine recovery values for each stakeholder class under a liquidation scenario.
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Discuss Comparable Transactions Analysis to assess value multiples of similar distressed asset sales as reference points.
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Describe using a Discounted Cash Flow approach adjusted for distress – factoring in impacts of business decline on projections before assessing enterprise value.
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Outline appropriate valuation considerations like limited buyer universe, discounted multiples, higher discount rates, and realistic exit scenarios.
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Emphasize the importance of valuations supporting an actionable and achievable restructuring plan that creditors can endorse. Discuss assessing viability of the business continuing as a going concern.
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Conclude by describing how you’d synthesize analysis into valuation ranges, recovery estimates for each stakeholder class, and strategic restructuring recommendations.
5. How would you approach a case study or business situation presented in an interview?
This assesses your problem-solving process under time pressure.
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First, seek clarifying information from the interviewer if the scenario is ambiguous – you can’t demonstrate your skills if you make inaccurate assumptions.
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Methodically structure your approach into distinct stages – initial hypothesis, data gathering and analysis, developing recommendations.
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For data analysis, outline using frameworks like SWOT analysis or Porter’s 5 Forces to synthesize information into strategic insights.
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Maintain an interactive dialogue – think aloud and welcome feedback or nudges from the interviewer.
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Drive towards well-supported, actionable recommendations, weighing pros and cons of alternatives. Quantify impacts where possible.
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If you get stuck, acknowledge challenges but demonstrate perseverance and creative problem-solving to work through them.
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Ask clarifying questions before wrapping up to validate your logic. Concisely summarize key takeaways and next steps.
6. Pitch me a stock as if I were a client.
This tests communication skills and investing acumen.
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Introduce the investment thesis upfront in a compelling, easy-to-grasp manner focused on upside potential, not just facts.
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Provide historical context on business performance and trading levels to baseline the current opportunity. Use visual aids if possible.
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Analyze fundamentals driving growth, risks, and market sentiment. Tie to financial performance using metrics like revenue, earnings, valuation multiples.
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Support recommendations with credible data – market projections, management guidance, competitive intelligence. Provide perspectives from reputable analysts.
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Acknowledge risks and counterarguments – address why they are surmountable or not dealbreakers.
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Quantify expected returns under target scenarios. Demonstrate conviction on achievability.
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Customize the level of complexity appropriately for the hypothetical audience. Offer to elaborate on details when asked.
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Invite questions throughout to validate understanding and have an engaging discussion.
7. Walk me through your resume.
This assesses communication skills, interests, and career motivations.
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Organize chronologically but focus on highlights relevant to the role, not comprehensive details.
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Provide brief overviews of key experiences, companies, and responsibilities.
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Emphasize transferable skills gained from past experiences and how they equip you for the role.
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Align to Centerview’s strengths – e.g. if you highlight involvement in complex analysis, relate it to Centerview’s reputation for high-profile mandates.
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Share interests and activities to come across as well-rounded. Relate them to strengths like teamwork, leadership, determination.
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Conclude by explaining why you’re motivated for the role and planning to stay long-term. Demonstrate enthusiasm.
General Tips for Acing Your Centerview Interview
Beyond preparing for specific questions, here are some key strategies to shine:
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Thoroughly research Centerview – their core strengths, specialties, culture, deal teams, past transactions, and thought leadership.
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Practice aloud extensively – verbalize your thinking process to tackle nerves and reduce ums/ahs.
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Strengthen financial/accounting fundamentals – ensure concepts like DCF, LBO models, 3-statement modeling are second nature.
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Prepare an inventory of stories – experiences, deals, projects that exemplify desired skills. Study your resume and craft concise stories.
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Review current affairs and markets – inject relevant facts and perspectives to demonstrate commercial awareness.
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Plan illustrative visuals – charts, graphs, analysis summaries that vividly convey key points.
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Prioritize interactive dialogue – welcome feedback an
Let’s say you want to buy 10% of a company for $50m. The company has $300m in debt, $100m in cash, $50m in capital leases, and $25m in operating leases. What’s the enterprise value of the company?
This is a relatively straight forward EV question, but with a bit of a trick thrown in.
First, we can find the equity value by taking $50m / 0. 1, which gives us $500m. Then we can add back the debt and subtract the cash to get $700m. After this, we just need to deal with our capital leases and operating leases.
Capital leases were used in the EV calculation because they were similar to debt, while operating leases were thought of as off-balance sheet items. You may have read about this difference in older IB guides. Therefore, we would just say that our final EV is $750m after including the capital leases.
However, with the introduction of IFRS 16 almost all operating leases are now considered debt-like for accounting purposes. This would mean the EV in our example here would be $775m after rolling in the operating leases (instead of just ignoring them for EV calculation purposes as you would before).
Practically, in most situations folks like to calculate EV as it was done previously (without operating leases). However, if youre just drawing an enterprise value figure out of somewhere like CapIQ theyll bundle operating leases into the EV calculation now (so you need to back out operating leases, which is annoying).
If you’re including operating leases in your enterprise value calculation, what does that do to your EV / EBITDA multiple?
As mentioned, in practice youll likely strip your EV of operating leases. But if you include operating leases in your EV calculation, your EBITDA will not be comparable, and your multiple will be too high because the numerator will be bigger than the denominator.
If you want to keep operating leases in the numerator, you’ll need to change EBITDA to include lease costs, which will give you EBITDAR.
Note: If you can’t find the operating leases anywhere on the balance sheet, you can multiply the annual lease cost by Moody’s industry multiple grid. However, if operating leases arent to be found on the balance sheet its probably because theyre incredibly small.
This is all a bit in the weeds for interview purposes. But EV calculations come up in every interview in some way, so it’s helpful to know how to do them.
Three Common Interview Questions- Brandt, Centerview Investment Banking & Goldman Investment Banking
FAQ
Is it hard to get into Centerview Partners?
What is unique about Centerview Partners?
How much do Centerview Partners make?
What is the Summer Analyst interview at Centerview Partners?
What questions should you prepare for a Centerview partner interview?
Below are some of the top Centerview Partners questions you should prepare for. The interview format isn’t different than any other banking interview, but you will occasionally get more abstract problems (like question six). Question 1: Why Centerview? Question 2: Let’s say you own 80% of a company that generated $200 in net income.
What was the interview process like at Centerview Partners?
I interviewed at Centerview Partners (San Francisco, CA) in Apr 2023 call with two analysts. One behavioral (30 min) one technical (30 min). Lasted an hour in total. Went well, and the analysts were very personable. behavioral was questions about the industry you’re following and any recent deals in the indsutry.
Is Centerview Partners a good company?
On Glassdoor, you can share insights and advice anonymously with Centerview Partners employees and get real answers from people on the inside. Very difficult and technical to the point that almost mad no sense to someone interviewing for an entry-level position. Their reputation is definitely true as being a place with tough technical interviews
What questions does Centerview Partners ask?
Centerview Partners is fairly standard with the type of questions that they ask. These questions can be divided into three sections – behavioral, logical, and hypothetical. However, the company is known to ask behavioral questions that seem ‘out of the box.’
