48 hours
48-Hour Take-Home LBO
A memorandum, a databook and one page of instructions.
You send backExcel model, four-page memo
$89
See the testPractice Tests / 48-Hour Investment Memo
- 48 hours
- Two-page memo
- Presentation only
- Private equity
48-Hour Investment Memo
Read an 86-page presentation and write a two-page memo for the investment committee, with a price.
You get the test, a worked answer key, the memo I sent, my working model and a two-page debrief.
Threadwell Abrasives, a fictional company · Recreated from a test I took in May 2023
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What you are given
A one-page prompt and an 86-page presentation.
This is a page from the test. Select it to read it at full size.
What the test asks
- Read a confidential information presentation on a family-owned supplier of premium abrasives, chemicals and tooling for metalworking.
- Write a memo for the investment committee. Two pages at most.
- Four required sections: an investment thesis with what you would do after closing, highlights in order of importance, risks and mitigants in order of importance, and a recommendation with a price.
- No model is asked for. You will want one.
- Be ready to defend the recommendation afterwards.
- All of it in 48 hours.
What the answer looks like
The answer key is my corrected working model, with a note on each corrected row. You can check yours against it line by line. This example is from the free test, so nothing here gives this case away.
The note on the Taxes row
<- Got this wrong on the day: in the 60-minute file (row 27) this was EBT x (1 - tax rate), which is after-tax income, and cash taxes read it. Tax is EBT x the tax rate.
Take the free 60-minute test to see a full answer key and debrief
What you get
Start here.pdf1 page
1 - The test
1 - The assignment.pdf1 page
2 - Confidential information presentation.pdf86 pages
2 - My answer
1 - Answer key (corrected model).xlsxcheck yours against this
2 - The memo I sent.pdf2 pages
3 - My working model.xlsx
3 - Debrief
Debrief.pdf2 pages
Who it is for
- Anyone facing a take-home case in a private equity associate process where the deliverable is a written recommendation and a price.
- Bankers who can model but have not had to cut an 86-page document down to two pages.
- The clock is 48 hours. Allow an hour afterwards to compare and read the debrief.
The story
In May 2023 I was interviewing for an associate role at a private equity firm, in a process that ran through a recruiter. After a first round, the firm invited me to the next one, a written case study.
The recruiter emailed it on a Sunday morning: a one-page prompt and a presentation on a company for sale. I had 48 hours, around a full-time job, to write a memo for the firm's investment committee, two pages at most. Nobody asked for a model. I built one anyway to get to a price.
I sent the memo a few hours before the deadline.
Before you start
Is this the real test?
It is recreated from the test I took. The format, the task and the time limit are the same. The company is fictional and its figures are changed.
Why two models?
One is my working file. The other is the same file corrected, with a grey note on every row that changed. Check your numbers against the corrected one.
Did the corrections matter?
Yes. The model had no tax line and charged less interest than the memo said. Fixing both, and holding for the five years the memo states, takes the base case from 21.6% to 16.9%. The debrief lists each fix with its cells and what it was worth.
More tests like this one
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Take-Home LBO and Investment Memo
Price a majority stake in a managed IT provider and write the memo.
You send backExcel model, written recommendation
$89
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