real estate private equity interview case study

Top 20 Real Estate Private Equity Interview Questions & Answers

Master your responses to Real Estate Private Equity related interview questions with our example questions and answers. Boost your chances of landing the job by learning how to effectively communicate your Real Estate Private Equity capabilities.

Venturing into the world of Real Estate Private Equity (REPE) means stepping into a niche where financial acumen meets property markets, and every deal hinges on your ability to analyze, forecast, and capitalize on potential investment opportunities. As an aspirant for a role in this prestigious sector, you must convince prospective employers that you have the expertise to drive high-stakes decisions and generate substantial returns.

Preparing for an interview in REPE involves not just a thorough understanding of real estate and finance but also a readiness to tackle complex scenario-based questions that test your strategic thinking. In this article, we’ll delve into some of the key interview questions that candidates might face when interviewing for a position within Real Estate Private Equity, providing insights and strategies to help you craft compelling responses that demonstrate your depth of knowledge and investment prowess.

Common Real Estate Private Equity Interview Questions

1. how do you evaluate the potential of a new real estate market for private equity investment.

Understanding the socio-economic context and growth trajectories of regions is crucial in real estate private equity. It’s not just about the numbers but also about what makes a property valuable. Analytical acumen and an instinct for future trends are key when dissecting a market beyond surface-level indicators. Delving into factors that drive long-term value and stability is what sets apart a savvy investor.

When responding to this question, start by outlining a structured approach to market analysis, which might include historical data review, demographic trends, economic indicators, and industry forecasts. Discuss how you would incorporate quantitative data with qualitative insights, such as regulatory changes or upcoming infrastructure projects. It’s also effective to mention any proprietary models or frameworks you use to assess market viability. If you have past experiences where you successfully identified and capitalized on emerging markets, sharing a concise case study can demonstrate your practical application of these principles.

Example: “ In evaluating the potential of a new real estate market for private equity investment, I begin by conducting a thorough analysis of historical performance metrics, including cap rates, rental yield trends, and vacancy rates. I then overlay demographic and economic indicators such as population growth, employment rates, and income levels to assess the underlying demand drivers. It’s crucial to understand the local supply dynamics, including development pipelines and zoning regulations, to gauge future market saturation and competition.

I complement this quantitative analysis with qualitative insights, such as the impact of upcoming infrastructure projects, changes in urban planning policies, or shifts in consumer preferences. For instance, a new transit line can significantly enhance property values and rental demand in previously less accessible areas. I also utilize advanced econometric models to forecast future market trends and identify potential risks and rewards. A recent success involved leveraging these methods to pinpoint an undervalued market with strong growth prospects due to a burgeoning tech industry, resulting in a timely and profitable investment for our firm.”

2. Describe your approach to conducting due diligence on a property before acquisition.

A meticulous approach to due diligence is vital in real estate private equity. It’s about more than just assessing viability and potential ROI; it’s about identifying risks that could affect profitability. Candidates should demonstrate a systematic, detail-oriented approach to evaluating investment opportunities.

When responding to this question, you should outline a step-by-step process that includes reviewing financial documents such as profit and loss statements, rent rolls, and tax assessments; conducting market analysis to understand the property’s position in the current and future market; performing physical inspections to assess the condition and identify any needed repairs or maintenance; and evaluating legal compliance with zoning laws, titles, and any potential liabilities. It’s essential to convey that your approach is thorough, risk-averse, and grounded in a sound understanding of real estate economics and law, demonstrating your ability to protect and grow the firm’s investments.

Example: “ In conducting due diligence for a property acquisition, my initial focus is on a meticulous financial analysis. I scrutinize the last few years of profit and loss statements to assess the asset’s operating performance, ensuring that the NOI aligns with market benchmarks. Rent rolls are examined to evaluate tenant quality and lease expiration profiles, which are critical for understanding income stability and potential rollover risks. Additionally, I review tax assessments to ensure there are no outstanding liabilities that could affect the property’s net cash flow.

Concurrently, I conduct a comprehensive market analysis, considering macroeconomic indicators and local market dynamics to forecast the property’s performance. This includes analyzing supply and demand, rental rate trends, and occupancy levels in the submarket, which helps in understanding the asset’s competitive positioning. A physical inspection of the property is crucial to identify deferred maintenance or capital improvement needs that could impact the valuation or future cash flows. Lastly, I ensure legal due diligence is thorough, reviewing zoning compliance, title searches, and any encumbrances or easements that could impose on the property’s operation or value. This holistic approach ensures that we mitigate risks and secure investments that align with our strategic objectives.”

3. What factors drive your decision-making process when considering asset disposal in a portfolio?

Deciding to dispose of an asset in real estate private equity is a significant strategic move. It requires balancing financial metrics, market conditions, and investment horizons with the fund’s goals. The intricate dance between investor expectations and market fluidity is crucial for timing disposals to maximize returns and mitigate risks.

When responding, one should articulate a multi-faceted approach that begins with quantitative analysis, such as IRR targets, equity multiples, and hold period optimization. Then, layer in qualitative considerations like market growth potential, asset quality, and alignment with the fund’s investment thesis. It’s essential to communicate a structured yet adaptable process that takes into account both micro and macroeconomic factors as well as stakeholder interests. Demonstrating an understanding of the fund’s lifecycle and how asset disposal fits into the larger picture of portfolio management will show depth and sophistication in your decision-making process.

Example: “ When considering asset disposal, the primary quantitative factor is whether the disposal aligns with our targeted internal rate of return (IRR) and equity multiple objectives. This involves a thorough analysis of the asset’s financial performance and projections, ensuring that the timing of the disposal maximizes returns and corresponds with optimal hold period strategies. Additionally, we consider the cost of capital and the reinvestment opportunities available, aiming to recycle capital into higher-yielding investments when appropriate.

On the qualitative side, it’s crucial to assess the market cycle, identifying whether the asset is in a market with growth potential that could warrant a longer hold or if market dynamics suggest a peak valuation conducive to selling. The asset’s quality and how it aligns with our fund’s investment thesis are also top considerations. For instance, if an asset no longer fits the strategic direction of the fund due to shifts in market trends or fund objectives, disposal might be the prudent course of action. Finally, stakeholder interests, including investor expectations and fund lifecycle considerations, play a pivotal role in the decision-making process, ensuring that each disposal decision supports the overarching goals of the fund and its investors.”

4. Outline a strategy for capital raising that targets both institutional and high-net-worth investors.

Crafting a tailored approach to attract different investor segments is essential in real estate private equity. Institutional and high-net-worth individuals have diverse expectations and risk appetites. It’s important to resonate with each group’s unique motivations while balancing the need for large-scale funding.

When responding, it’s crucial to articulate a dual-faceted strategy that addresses both audiences. For institutional investors, emphasize leveraging industry relationships, presenting data-driven market analysis, and showcasing past successful projects that underline the fund’s credibility. For high-net-worth individuals, focus on the personalized approach, highlighting the exclusive opportunities, the direct impact their investment can make, and the potential for bespoke investment terms. Articulating how you would maintain transparent communication and offer thorough due diligence to both groups will demonstrate your comprehensive understanding of investor relations.

Example: “ To effectively raise capital from institutional investors, the strategy should center on demonstrating a robust track record and providing a granular level of detail in market analysis and projections. Institutional investors typically have a mandate to fulfill and look for opportunities that offer a strong alignment with their investment criteria. By presenting a comprehensive portfolio of past successful projects, we can establish credibility. Additionally, institutional investors require extensive due diligence, so providing in-depth information on the underwriting process, risk management strategies, and exit scenarios is essential. This can be supplemented with data-driven insights into market trends and potential growth areas, which will help in showcasing the fund’s strategic edge.

Conversely, when targeting high-net-worth individuals, the approach would be more personalized. It is crucial to emphasize the unique opportunities that our fund offers, such as access to off-market deals or early investment stages that are typically reserved for institutional players. By highlighting the potential for customized investment terms and the direct impact of their investment, we can appeal to their desire for exclusivity and control. For both high-net-worth and institutional investors, maintaining a transparent line of communication is key. This includes regular updates on fund performance, market conditions, and any shifts in strategy. Providing a clear and concise reporting framework will help build trust and reinforce the fund’s commitment to accountability and transparency.”

5. Illustrate how you would structure a waterfall distribution model for limited partners in a fund.

Proficiency in financial modeling is critical when discussing the waterfall distribution model in real estate private equity. This complex method of allocating returns aligns the interests of general and limited partners. Candidates must demonstrate their understanding of priority return sequences and manage investor expectations effectively.

When responding to this question, begin by outlining the basic tiers of a typical waterfall structure—such as return of capital, preferred return, catch-up, and carried interest. Then, delve into the specifics, like the rates of return you would offer at each tier and the conditions that trigger the transition from one tier to another. Use clear language and, if possible, reference past experience where you’ve successfully implemented or managed such a structure. Demonstrate your strategic approach to aligning interests and ensuring fairness in profit distribution, emphasizing your commitment to transparency and fiduciary responsibility.

Example: “ In structuring a waterfall distribution model for limited partners, I would start by establishing a clear return of capital tier. This ensures that all initial capital contributions are returned to the limited partners before any profits are distributed. Following this, I would implement a preferred return tier, typically set at an 8% hurdle rate, which aligns with industry standards and compensates limited partners for the opportunity cost of their investment.

Once the preferred return is met, the next tier would be the catch-up phase, designed to allocate profits to the general partner until the profit split reaches the agreed-upon ratio, often 80/20 or 70/30 in favor of limited partners. This structure incentivizes the general partner to surpass the preferred return threshold, as they would receive a larger share of profits beyond this point. Finally, any remaining profits would be distributed according to the carried interest agreement, which typically sees the general partner receiving 20% of additional profits, further aligning the interests of both parties. Throughout this process, it’s crucial to maintain transparency and to have clear, contractual definitions of each tier to uphold fiduciary responsibility and ensure the alignment of interests between the general partner and limited partners.”

6. In what ways have you optimized operational efficiencies within properties to enhance value?

Maximizing the value of real estate properties hinges on understanding operational intricacies. Candidates should showcase their ability to scrutinize processes, identify improvement areas, and implement strategic changes that enhance profitability.

When responding, candidates should outline specific strategies they’ve employed, such as renegotiating vendor contracts, implementing new technologies for property management, or redesigning services to enhance tenant satisfaction and retention. It’s important to provide concrete examples that demonstrate a thoughtful approach to cost-reduction and revenue-enhancement, and to explain the thought process behind these decisions, including any analysis or data that guided them.

Example: “ In optimizing operational efficiencies, I’ve focused on the strategic renegotiation of vendor contracts and the integration of smart technology systems. By conducting a thorough market analysis, I identified opportunities to renegotiate contracts with key vendors, leading to a reduction in operating expenses without compromising service quality. This not only improved net operating income but also strengthened relationships with vendors who were willing to provide more favorable terms in exchange for longer-term contracts.

Furthermore, I spearheaded the adoption of advanced property management software that streamlined maintenance requests, tenant communication, and energy management. The implementation of these systems reduced manual workload, allowing on-site management to focus on tenant engagement and satisfaction. This tech-forward approach not only decreased operational costs but also enhanced the tenant experience, contributing to higher retention rates and reducing vacancy-related revenue loss. The combination of these initiatives resulted in a measurable increase in property value, as reflected in both improved cash flows and capitalization rates.”

7. Provide an example of a complex deal you structured and the challenges you faced during execution.

Orchestrating sophisticated transactions in real estate private equity requires a multifaceted skill set. Candidates are tested on their experience with complex financial arrangements, regulatory hurdles, and stakeholder negotiations. The ability to structure deals, solve problems, and manage risks is under scrutiny.

When responding, candidates should outline the deal’s context, emphasizing the complexities involved, such as capital stack, investment thesis, market conditions, and regulatory constraints. They should then detail the specific challenges encountered and how they navigated these obstacles, showcasing their strategic thinking, negotiation skills, and resilience. The response should conclude with the outcome, reflecting on any lessons learned and the overall impact on their portfolio or company.

Example: “ In structuring a multifaceted urban redevelopment project, we were faced with a capital stack that included senior debt, mezzanine financing, and multiple equity investors, each with distinct terms and priorities. The investment thesis hinged on a value-add strategy, capitalizing on zoning changes to increase the rentable square footage and implementing significant property improvements to attract a higher-paying tenant mix.

The primary challenges stemmed from aligning the interests of diverse stakeholders, navigating the intricacies of urban planning regulations, and mitigating construction risk in a volatile market. Through meticulous due diligence and leveraging our relationships with local authorities, we secured the necessary permits and entitlements. We also structured waterfall provisions in the equity agreements to address the disparate risk profiles and return expectations of our investors. Furthermore, we negotiated a flexible draw schedule with our mezzanine lender to accommodate potential construction delays.

The deal concluded with a successful stabilization of the asset, yielding an IRR that exceeded initial projections. This experience underscored the importance of adaptive financial engineering and stakeholder management in complex real estate private equity transactions.”

8. Detail your experience with regulatory compliance issues in cross-border real estate transactions.

Meticulous attention to detail and a robust understanding of various legal frameworks are essential when dealing with cross-border transactions in real estate private equity. Candidates must demonstrate their ability to navigate international laws and regulations efficiently to mitigate risks and ensure smooth transaction processes.

When responding to this question, it’s essential to articulate specific instances where you’ve successfully managed compliance challenges. Share examples that demonstrate your expertise in conducting due diligence, interpreting complex legal documents, and coordinating with international teams to adhere to all relevant laws and regulations. Highlight any strategies you’ve implemented to stay informed about regulatory updates and how you’ve ensured that cross-border transactions are executed in compliance with all necessary legal standards.

Example: “ In navigating cross-border real estate transactions, I’ve encountered a range of regulatory compliance issues, particularly in the areas of due diligence and fund structuring to meet the legal requirements of multiple jurisdictions. A notable experience involved a transaction between the US and Germany, where I led the due diligence process, ensuring adherence to both the Foreign Investment in Real Property Tax Act (FIRPTA) in the US and the German Investment Code (KAGB). This required a comprehensive understanding of tax implications, entity structuring, and the nuances of foreign investment regulations.

To mitigate risks and ensure compliance, I developed a strategy that involved close collaboration with local legal experts and tax advisors, which facilitated the interpretation of complex legal frameworks and the identification of any potential compliance red flags. Additionally, I implemented a compliance monitoring system that provided real-time updates on regulatory changes, allowing us to proactively adjust our investment structures and strategies. This approach not only ensured that the transaction met all legal standards but also optimized the tax efficiency of the investment, ultimately enhancing investor returns.”

9. What metrics do you prioritize when evaluating the performance of a real estate private equity fund?

Prioritizing the right metrics is crucial for assessing a real estate private equity fund’s performance. Candidates should exhibit analytical skills, familiarity with industry standards, and the ability to balance risk and reward in investment decisions.

When responding, it’s important to demonstrate your grasp of industry-specific metrics such as Internal Rate of Return (IRR), Equity Multiple, Cash on Cash Return, Net Asset Value (NAV), and the Debt-Service Coverage Ratio (DSCR). Explain how you use these metrics to paint a comprehensive picture of a fund’s performance, taking into account both short-term profitability and long-term value creation. Articulate clearly how you prioritize or weigh these metrics based on the fund’s strategy and objectives, and how they align with the interests of investors.

Example: “ When evaluating a real estate private equity fund, I prioritize metrics that provide a holistic view of both the current performance and the projected long-term value. Internal Rate of Return (IRR) is at the forefront, as it reflects the fund’s efficiency in generating returns over the investment horizon, taking into account the time value of money. However, IRR must be balanced with the Equity Multiple, which gives a clear picture of the total cash returned to investors relative to the equity invested. This is crucial for understanding the scale of returns in absolute terms.

In conjunction with these, I assess the Cash on Cash Return to gauge the fund’s ability to generate cash flow from operations, which is a key indicator of the asset’s current income-producing potential. Net Asset Value (NAV) provides insight into the fund’s underlying asset value, which is essential for assessing the long-term appreciation potential. Lastly, the Debt-Service Coverage Ratio (DSCR) is critical for understanding the fund’s risk profile, as it measures the ability to cover debt obligations, which is particularly important in a leveraged investment structure. Each metric is weighted according to the fund’s strategy—whether it’s value-add, opportunistic, or core/core-plus—and investor risk appetite, ensuring alignment with the overall investment objectives.”

10. How do you mitigate risks associated with environmental concerns in property investments?

Foresight and expertise in environmental due diligence are critical in real estate private equity. Candidates must understand environmental regulations and implement strategies to protect investments from potential liabilities.

When responding, highlight your experience with environmental due diligence processes, such as Phase I and Phase II Environmental Site Assessments. Discuss how you stay informed about relevant environmental laws and regulations and how you collaborate with experts, like environmental consultants, to evaluate risks. Emphasize your strategic approach to managing these risks, whether through insurance, contractual protections, or incorporating sustainability practices into property management. Demonstrate your understanding that mitigating environmental risks is not just about avoiding financial loss, but also about ensuring long-term investment viability and contributing positively to the community and environment.

Example: “ Mitigating environmental risks begins with a thorough due diligence process, incorporating a Phase I Environmental Site Assessment to identify potential contamination or environmental liabilities. If any issues are flagged, a Phase II Assessment follows, with soil, groundwater, and building materials testing to quantify risks. Staying abreast of environmental regulations is crucial; I ensure compliance with federal, state, and local environmental laws, which not only protects the investment but also aligns with responsible stewardship practices.

In managing identified risks, I engage with specialized environmental consultants to devise remediation strategies when necessary, and I incorporate environmental indemnities and warranties into purchase agreements to safeguard against unforeseen liabilities. Additionally, I advocate for the integration of sustainability practices in property management to enhance asset value and marketability while minimizing the property’s environmental footprint. This strategic approach not only mitigates immediate risks but also positions the investment for long-term resilience and compliance with evolving environmental standards.”

11. Share a time when you successfully negotiated a joint venture agreement in the real estate sector.

Forging successful joint ventures in real estate private equity involves aligning interests and maximizing returns. Candidates should demonstrate their experience in establishing partnerships that are lucrative, stable, and synergistic.

When responding, be specific about the context of the deal, the challenges faced, and how you addressed them. Outline the strategies you used to find common ground and how you structured the agreement to benefit all parties. Demonstrate your analytical skills by discussing the financial modeling and due diligence performed, and highlight your interpersonal skills by explaining how you built rapport and trust with the other party. It’s essential to convey that your negotiation skills are backed by a deep understanding of the market and a commitment to fostering strong, profitable partnerships.

Example: “ In a recent joint venture, I spearheaded negotiations for a mixed-use development project in a burgeoning urban area. The complexity of the deal stemmed from aligning our investment strategy, which prioritized long-term capital appreciation, with our partner’s focus on immediate cash flow generation. Through meticulous financial modeling, I demonstrated the viability of a phased development approach that could satisfy both objectives. This involved a detailed revenue projection for the retail spaces, which would provide early cash flow, alongside a longer-term forecast for the residential units that were expected to appreciate in value due to the area’s development trajectory.

To build trust and find common ground, I conducted thorough due diligence, which included market analysis, zoning regulations, and demographic studies to substantiate our projections. By presenting data-driven insights, I was able to persuade our partner that the proposed structure would not only meet their cash flow requirements but also enhance the overall profitability of the venture. The agreement was structured to include performance milestones tied to the financial goals of both parties, ensuring a balanced distribution of risks and rewards. This successful negotiation was a testament to the importance of preparation, clear communication, and the ability to synthesize complex information into a compelling investment narrative.”

12. Walk me through your method for projecting cash flows and calculating net present values for potential acquisitions.

Accurately assessing the profitability of property acquisitions is the crux of real estate private equity. Candidates must show their ability to project cash flows, calculate net present values, and anticipate scenarios affecting investment performance.

When responding, outline your approach by highlighting key components such as market research, rental income projections, expense estimations, financing assumptions, and exit strategy. Be clear on how you incorporate variables like occupancy rates, inflation, interest rates, and capital expenditures into your model. Discuss how you discount future cash flows to arrive at the net present value, referencing the discount rate you choose and why. Showcasing your attention to detail, ability to manage complex calculations, and your understanding of market trends will demonstrate your expertise and value to the team.

Example: “ In projecting cash flows for potential acquisitions, I start by conducting thorough market research to establish realistic rental income projections, taking into account local occupancy rates, comparable lease rates, and historical data trends. I then estimate operating expenses, including property management, maintenance, taxes, and insurance, while incorporating anticipated inflation rates. For financing assumptions, I analyze current market interest rates, loan-to-value ratios, and debt coverage service ratios to structure the optimal capital stack.

Capital expenditures are forecasted based on the property’s condition and the strategic long-term hold period, ensuring we account for both routine and major maintenance that could impact the asset’s performance. The exit strategy is crafted by evaluating market cycles, potential capital appreciation, and the projected hold period, which informs the terminal value calculation.

To calculate the net present value, I discount future cash flows using a discount rate that reflects the risk profile of the investment, often derived from the weighted average cost of capital or adjusted for real estate-specific risk premiums. This rate is pivotal as it aligns the investment’s risk with expected returns, ensuring that we are making informed decisions that aim to maximize investor value while mitigating financial exposure.”

13. How do you balance diversification and focus in a real estate investment portfolio?

A strategic approach to portfolio construction is tested in real estate private equity. Candidates should understand how diversification across property types and locations can protect against market volatility while recognizing the potential dilution of expertise and gains.

When responding, articulate your strategy for diversification, such as investing in various real estate sectors like residential, commercial, and industrial, and across different markets to hedge against localized economic downturns. Then pivot to focus, explaining how specializing in certain types of real estate or regions can lead to a deeper understanding of those markets, potentially resulting in better investment decisions. Provide examples from past experiences where your balanced approach has led to successful outcomes, showing that you can navigate the equilibrium between spreading risk and capitalizing on concentrated knowledge.

Example: “ Balancing diversification and focus within a real estate investment portfolio requires a strategic approach that mitigates risk while maximizing returns. Diversification is achieved by allocating investments across various property types and geographic locations. This spreads exposure and reduces the impact of sector-specific or regional economic downturns. For instance, during times when the residential market may be underperforming, a well-diversified portfolio that includes commercial and industrial assets can provide stability and continued income streams.

Conversely, maintaining a degree of focus allows for the cultivation of specialized expertise and the ability to recognize unique opportunities that others may overlook. By concentrating on particular niches within the real estate market, such as multifamily properties in high-growth urban areas, one can leverage in-depth knowledge to achieve above-market returns. A successful example of this balanced approach is the strategic investment in a portfolio that combines stable, income-generating Class B office spaces in emerging markets with targeted development projects in established markets, which can offer significant value-add potential. This blend of diversification and focus has consistently resulted in resilient performance across various market cycles.”

14. Which emerging trends in real estate are most likely to impact private equity strategies, and why?

Anticipating and capitalizing on trends in the real estate market is a key skill for private equity professionals. Candidates should demonstrate their ability to analyze and articulate the impacts of emerging trends on investment strategies.

When responding to this question, focus on specific trends that have tangible implications for private equity, such as shifts towards sustainable development, the rise of smart home technology, or changes in urbanization patterns. Explain how these trends could affect asset valuation, investment appetites, and portfolio diversification. Offer insights into how you would adjust investment strategies in response to these trends and back up your reasoning with evidence or examples from recent market developments. This not only shows your analytical skills but also your proactive approach to portfolio management.

Example: “ The shift towards sustainable development is a significant trend impacting real estate private equity strategies. As environmental concerns become more pronounced, there’s a growing demand for green buildings and eco-friendly infrastructure. This trend is not just driven by regulatory pressures, but also by tenant and investor preferences, which are increasingly skewed towards sustainability. Consequently, assets that adhere to environmental standards, such as LEED certification, are likely to see enhanced valuation and lower operating costs due to energy efficiency. In response, a private equity strategy should prioritize investments in properties with strong sustainability profiles or those that offer potential for green retrofitting, thereby aligning with the ESG criteria that are becoming essential for attracting institutional capital.

Another trend is the evolution of smart home technology and its integration into residential and commercial real estate. This technology is rapidly becoming a differentiator in the market, as properties equipped with smart systems offer enhanced security, convenience, and energy efficiency, which can translate into higher rental premiums and occupancy rates. From a private equity perspective, this necessitates a strategy that not only values these technological enhancements in underwriting but also actively seeks to invest in properties that can support or are already equipped with such innovations. By doing so, private equity firms can ensure their portfolios remain attractive and competitive, capitalizing on the operational efficiencies and tenant demand driven by smart technology adoption.”

15. Tell us about a particularly challenging tenant issue you’ve resolved while managing a property.

Handling difficult tenant issues is a test of interpersonal skills and the ability to maintain an asset’s value. Candidates should reflect on their conflict resolution skills, legal knowledge, and commitment to preserving the property’s reputation and income stream.

When responding, provide a structured account of the situation, the actions taken, and the outcome. Emphasize your thought process and the rationale behind your decisions. Highlight your communication skills, the steps you took to understand the tenant’s perspective, and how you balanced firmness with empathy. Mention any creative solutions you implemented and how you managed to safeguard the property’s interests while resolving the issue amicably. This response will demonstrate your hands-on experience and capability in property management within the high-stakes environment of real estate private equity.

Example: “ In one instance, we faced a situation where a commercial tenant in a high-value property was consistently late on rent payments, which began to affect our cash flow projections and investor returns. Recognizing the potential impact on our asset’s performance, I initiated a dialogue with the tenant to understand the root cause. It turned out they were experiencing temporary cash flow issues due to a delayed receivable from a major client.

Balancing the need for maintaining strict contractual obligations with a strategic long-term perspective, I proposed a temporary rent deferral plan, allowing the tenant to pay a reduced rent for three months, followed by a catch-up schedule aligned with their expected cash inflows. This solution required negotiating with our investors and explaining how this approach minimized vacancy risks and potential leasing downtime costs, which could have been more detrimental to the asset’s income stream.

The outcome was favorable; the tenant’s financial situation stabilized, they fulfilled the catch-up plan, and our relationship was strengthened, leading to a lease extension at market rates. This resolution maintained property income, avoided the costs associated with tenant turnover, and preserved investor confidence in our asset management capabilities.”

16. Assess the role of technology in enhancing the value of real estate assets under management.

Leveraging technology is becoming increasingly important in real estate private equity. Candidates should understand how advanced analytics and IoT can transform property management and investment strategies to drive growth and investor returns.

When responding, candidates should articulate how they’ve utilized technology to enhance asset value, perhaps referencing specific platforms for property management, energy efficiency tech that reduces costs, or data analytics tools that have informed investment decisions. They should convey a clear vision of how they integrate technological solutions with traditional real estate acumen to optimize portfolio performance and stay ahead in a competitive market.

Example: “ Technology plays a pivotal role in enhancing the value of real estate assets by streamlining operations, improving tenant experiences, and providing data-driven insights for strategic decision-making. For instance, the integration of advanced property management platforms has enabled more efficient management of assets by automating tasks such as rent collection, maintenance requests, and tenant communication. This not only reduces operational costs but also elevates the tenant experience, contributing to higher retention rates and ultimately boosting the asset’s value.

On the sustainability front, incorporating energy-efficient technologies like smart HVAC systems and LED lighting has been key in reducing utility expenses, which not only enhances net operating income but also aligns with the growing investor and tenant demand for environmentally responsible properties. Moreover, leveraging big data analytics and AI has been instrumental in optimizing investment decisions, enabling the identification of undervalued assets and the prediction of market trends. By harnessing these technologies, I’ve been able to enhance asset performance, mitigate risk, and ensure that the portfolio remains competitive in an ever-evolving market landscape.”

17. What is your track record in securing debt financing for real estate deals, and what obstacles did you overcome?

Successfully securing debt financing showcases a candidate’s understanding of financial markets and their ability to navigate the world of lenders. Overcoming obstacles in obtaining loans reflects problem-solving skills and resilience.

When responding, it’s crucial to detail specific deals where you’ve successfully secured financing, emphasizing the scale and complexity of these transactions. Discuss the strategies employed to negotiate favorable terms, the challenges faced, such as economic downturns or regulatory changes, and how you addressed these issues. Quantify your achievements when possible, and explain the impact of your actions on the overall success of the deals. Your answer should showcase your expertise, resourcefulness, and tenacity in overcoming financing hurdles.

Example: “ In securing debt financing for real estate deals, I’ve navigated through a variety of market conditions and successfully closed transactions ranging from mid-size multifamily acquisitions to large-scale commercial developments. One notable example was a $50 million acquisition of a distressed asset in a secondary market, where traditional lenders were hesitant due to perceived risks and a cooling market climate. By leveraging my relationships with niche debt funds and articulating the upside potential through a detailed turnaround strategy, I was able to secure a favorable non-recourse loan at 75% LTV with a competitive interest rate.

Another challenge I overcame was during a period of regulatory tightening, where a high-profile, mixed-use development project faced increased scrutiny. The key was a thorough due diligence process and presenting a robust risk mitigation plan to lenders. This involved stress-testing the financial models under various economic scenarios and ensuring compliance with the latest regulatory requirements. The approach not only satisfied the lenders’ risk assessment criteria but also resulted in securing a lower interest rate, demonstrating the project’s solid fundamentals and my ability to navigate complex regulatory landscapes. The successful negotiation of these terms had a direct impact on enhancing the project’s IRR and equity multiples for our investors.”

18. Elaborate on a situation where you had to adapt your investment strategy due to macroeconomic changes.

Flexibility and analytical skills are essential when external economic factors impact real estate investments. Candidates must demonstrate their ability to interpret macroeconomic indicators and adjust investment strategies swiftly.

When responding, it’s crucial to outline a specific instance that exemplifies your strategic agility. Start by briefly describing the macroeconomic change that occurred, then detail how you identified the potential impact on your investments. Discuss the steps you took to reassess the situation, consult with your team or experts if relevant, and the rationale behind the adjustments you made to your strategy. Conclude with the outcome, emphasizing any positive results or lessons learned from the experience to underscore your capacity to navigate the fluid landscape of real estate private equity effectively.

Example: “ In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the macroeconomic landscape shifted dramatically, with interest rates plummeting and uncertainty permeating the market. Recognizing the potential long-term impact on commercial real estate, particularly in the office and retail sectors, we were prompted to reassess our portfolio’s exposure to these segments. With remote work trends accelerating and retail foot traffic declining, we anticipated a significant valuation adjustment and potential income disruptions.

We swiftly convened with our analysts and adjusted our strategy to reduce exposure to high-risk assets, while simultaneously identifying opportunities in industrial real estate and multifamily units, which were poised to benefit from the e-commerce boom and housing shortages. We reallocated funds, focusing on properties with strong fundamentals in growth markets, and enhanced our asset management efforts to preserve value in existing investments. This pivot not only insulated our portfolio from the worst of the downturn but also positioned us to capitalize on emerging trends, resulting in outperformance relative to our initial projections for the period.”

19. When analyzing a distressed asset, what key indicators suggest turnaround potential?

Discerning a distressed asset’s potential for recovery is paramount in real estate private equity. Candidates should exhibit their analytical acumen, understanding of market trends, and strategic thinking in financial forecasting.

When responding, focus on explaining your approach to analyzing factors such as the asset’s location, underlying market demand, and the potential for rent growth or cost reduction. Discuss how you would evaluate the quality of the existing tenant base, the terms of current leases, and the physical condition of the property. Mention any specific financial metrics you would scrutinize, like the capitalization rate or cash flow analysis. Be sure to articulate how these indicators, in combination with your knowledge of broader economic conditions and real estate cycles, would inform your assessment of the asset’s turnaround potential.

Example: “ In analyzing a distressed asset, the first indicator of turnaround potential I scrutinize is the location, which is fundamental in real estate. A prime location with strong underlying market demand signifies a resilient potential for value appreciation. Even if an asset is currently underperforming, a strategic location in a market with barriers to entry can suggest a high turnaround potential, assuming there is evidence of economic growth, job creation, and population inflows in the area.

Next, I assess the asset’s operational inefficiencies, focusing on the potential for rent growth or cost reduction. This involves a deep dive into the quality of the existing tenant base and the terms of current leases. Are there below-market rents due to poor management that can be adjusted? I also evaluate the physical condition of the property, estimating the capital required for improvements and the ROI on such investments. Financial metrics like the capitalization rate are analyzed in the context of the local market to determine if there is a mispricing opportunity. Cash flow analysis is critical; I look for properties with the ability to generate positive cash flows post-restructuring. These factors, combined with a macroeconomic perspective on real estate cycles, guide my assessment of whether the distressed asset is a turnaround candidate with a viable path to value creation.”

20. Reflect on a past investment that underperformed expectations and how you handled it.

Managing investments through market fluctuations and challenges reveals an investor’s strategic acumen and resilience. Candidates should discuss how they handle setbacks, analyze issues, and communicate corrective actions to stakeholders.

When responding to this question, a candidate should detail a specific example, focusing on the context that led to the underperformance. It’s important to articulate the analysis conducted to identify the root causes and the steps taken to address the situation. This reflection should demonstrate a balance between taking responsibility and understanding external factors. Moreover, the candidate should highlight any positive takeaways or strategic adjustments made post-analysis to illustrate growth and the ability to turn challenges into opportunities for future investments.

Example: “ Reflecting on a past investment, there was a multifamily asset in an emerging market that underperformed due to a confluence of unforeseen economic shifts and overestimation of rental growth rates. Upon identifying the underperformance, a comprehensive review was conducted, examining market trends, operational efficiencies, and the initial underwriting assumptions. It became apparent that the economic downturn had a more profound impact on local employment rates than anticipated, which in turn affected the rental market.

In response, we implemented a strategic asset management plan that included renegotiating terms with vendors, enhancing tenant retention programs, and adjusting marketing strategies to align with the current market conditions. Additionally, we revisited our underwriting models to incorporate more conservative growth rates and stress-tested scenarios for future investments. This experience underscored the importance of agility in asset management and reinforced the value of having robust risk mitigation strategies in place. The lessons learned from this investment have been instrumental in refining our due diligence process and have contributed to the success of subsequent investments.”

Top 20 Value Proposition Interview Questions & Answers

Top 20 content design interview questions & answers, you may also be interested in..., top 20 retail buying interview questions & answers, top 20 industrial hygiene interview questions & answers, top 20 respiratory therapy interview questions & answers, top 20 deductive reasoning interview questions & answers.

• All Self-Study Programs
• Premium Package
• Basic Package
• Private Equity Masterclass
• VC Term Sheets & Cap Tables
• Sell-Side Equity Research (ERC © )
• Buy-Side Financial Modeling
• Real Estate Financial Modeling
• REIT Modeling
• FP&A Modeling (CFPAM ™ )
• Project Finance Modeling
• Bank & FIG Modeling
• Oil & Gas Modeling
• Biotech Sum of the Parts Valuation
• The Impact of Tax Reform on Financial Modeling
• Corporate Restructuring
• The 13-Week Cash Flow Model
• Accounting Crash Course
• Advanced Accounting
• Crash Course in Bonds
• Analyzing Financial Reports
• Interpreting Non-GAAP Reports
• Fixed Income Markets (FIMC © )
• Equities Markets Certification (EMC © )
• ESG Investing
• Excel Crash Course
• PowerPoint Crash Course
• Ultimate Excel VBA Course
• Investment Banking "Soft Skills"
• Networking & Behavioral Interview
• 1000 Investment Banking Interview Questions
• Virtual Boot Camps
• 1:1 Coaching
• Corporate Training
• University Training
• Free Content
• Support/Contact Us
• About Wall Street Prep
• Real Estate

Real Estate Private Equity (REPE)

Step-by-Step Guide to Understanding Real Estate Private Equity (REPE)

Learn Online Now

What is Real Estate Private Equity?

Real Estate Private Equity (REPE) refers to firms that raise capital to acquire, develop, operate, improve, and sell buildings in order to generate returns for their investors. If you’re familiar with traditional private equity, real estate private equity is the same, but with buildings.

Table of Contents

Real Estate Private Equity (REPE): Career Guide

List of top repe firms, repe fund: corporate structure, real estate private equity investment strategies, repe investing risk profile, repe investment property type, repe firm: transaction size, geographic focus, debt or equity investments, real estate private equity (repe): jobs roles, real estate acquisitions, day in the life of an acquisitions real estate professional , asset management, acquisitions vs. asset management in real estate private equity, career path in real estate private equity (repe), real estate private equity (repe): hierarchy of roles, the principal / managing director: role, promotion path, and salary, real estate private equity (repe) acquisitions associate salary, top repe recruiters (2023 update), real estate private equity interview (repe): what to expect, real estate modeling test, real estate case study, top 10 real estate private equity interview questions (repe), other roles in real estate private equity.

As the “private” in “private equity” suggests, these firms raise capital from private investors and deploy that capital to make investments in real estate. There is little standardization to how real estate private equity firms are structured, but they all generally engage in five key activities:

• Capital raising
• Screening investment opportunities
• Acquiring or developing properties
• Managing properties
• Selling properties

Capital is the lifeblood of any investment firm – without capital to invest, there is no firm. The capital raised by real estate private equity firms comes from Limited Partners (LPs).

LPs generally consist of public pension funds, private pension funds, endowments, insurance companies, fund of funds , and high-net-worth individuals.

Real Estate Technical Interview Guide | File Download Form

By submitting this form, you consent to receive email from Wall Street Prep and agree to our terms of use and privacy policy.

There are many types of firms focused on real estate investment. Here we’re focusing specifically on REPE as opposed to REITs , or a variety of other types of real estate companies, and below is a list of the top real estate private equity firms (Source: perenews.com):

The Wharton Online and Wall Street Prep Real Estate Investing & Analysis Certificate Program

Level up your real estate investing career. Enrollment is open for the Sep. 9 - Nov. 10 Wharton Certificate Program cohort.

Like traditional private equity firms, real estate private equity firms raise money from Limited Partners (“LPs”)  – these are private investors (usually pension funds, university endowments, insurance companies, etc.).

As an important fine point, REPEs raise capital for specific “funds” (think individual investment vehicles all run by the same firm). These funds have their own “mandates,” meaning they have specific types of real estate investments they look for.

Another important thing to understand is that REPE funds are “closed-end funds,” meaning that investors expect to get their money back (ideally along with a hefty return on investment ) within a specified time frame – usually within 5-7 years.

This is a contrast to open-end funds raised by Real Estate Investment Management firms such as JP Morgan Asset Management and TA Realty that have no end date and therefore offer more flexibility to the manager.

REPE firms usually specialize to varying degrees around specific characteristics related to their investments:

In cases where the firms themselves are not organized this way, their specific investment funds usually will be.

Many REPE firms organize themselves according to risk profile as their driving investment strategy. They will carve out a portion of the risk/return spectrum and focus on transactions – regardless of property type and geography – that fit the specified risk profile and return targets.

The most high-profile types of real estate private equity fund strategies are called “Opportunistic” or “Value-Add” and refer to higher risk/return types of investments than the more conservative “Core” or “Core-Plus” strategies.  In the image below, you can see the return profile targeted across these different strategies.

This is an effective way for REPE firms to organize themselves because it sets clear expectations for a firm’s investors and allows the manager to diversify risk across geography and property types.

When you hear terms like “opportunity fund” or “targeting core investments,” they are usually referring to risk profiles and return targets.

REPE firms do not often constrain themselves when it comes to property type. In a scenario where they did, a firm would focus exclusively on one property type, hotels, for example, and diversify their investments in other ways within the property type sector.

Many REPE firms organize themselves by transaction size, which is largely informed by the amount of assets under management (AUM) but can also be part of a firm’s strategy.

Transaction size relative to AUM has implications on diversification and overhead (how many employees are necessary to close the target number of transactions).

If a firm has a large amount of AUM, it is likely to focus on larger transactions to keep the number of deals necessary to fully deploy its capital to a reasonable size. A firm with a smaller amount of AUM is likely to focus on smaller transactions in order to achieve the desired amount of asset diversity.

If a firm had $500 million of AUM and focused on transactions requiring $25 million of equity, the firm would need to purchase 20 properties to fully deploy its capital. On the other hand, if the same firm with $500 million of AUM focused on transactions requiring only $10 million of equity, the firm would need to purchase 50 properties to fully deploy its capital.

Many REPE firms choose to organize themselves by geographic location. There are a number of benefits from a strategic perspective, such as developing a higher level of expertise in an area and gaining a deeper network. From an operational perspective, it requires fewer offices across the country (or world) and reduces the amount of time employees must spend traveling to visit properties.

However, a constrained geographic focus reduces the level of diversification and the number of potential transactions. Many smaller firms are organized in this way and while larger firms tend to cover more geographies, they do so out of various offices that are geographically focused.

Traditionally, REPE firms are thought to be equity investors. But REPE can also pursue debt investment strategies where they make investments in different parts of the capital structure . Many REPE firms invest in both equity and debt.

As with non-real estate private equity, REPE deals require a team to execute. Below is the breakdown of the roles and job types in real estate private equity.

Real Estate Acquisitions involve the sourcing (senior deal professionals) and execution (junior deal professionals) of real estate transactions.  The day-to-day responsibilities of an acquisitions professional include:

• Sourcing deals
• Conducting market research
• Building financial models
• Analyzing deals
• Writing investment memorandums

Compared to asset management, acquisitions is generally viewed as the more “prestigious” role.

At the junior levels, most time is spent modeling potential acquisitions and writing investment memorandums.

Writing an investment memorandum requires summarizing a financial model , conducting market research, and crafting an investment thesis.

Onsite property tours are also a major part of real estate investing, and at many firms, junior acquisitions professionals can expect to spend a good amount of time traveling to various properties. During the execution phase of a deal, acquisitions professionals will shift their attention to due diligence and supporting the legal team.

The amount of involvement junior professionals have in due diligence and legal varies by firm. There is no typical day in the life as the distribution of time across these activities ebbs and flows with how active the firm is in deploying capital.

At the junior levels, most time as an asset manager is spent executing business plans for the assets you are responsible for – this can vary by property and risk type.

For example, if you are the asset manager for an industrial warehouse, your responsibilities may include speaking with property management to understand how the property is functioning, working to sign new leases to maintain occupancy, touring the asset various times throughout the year and speaking with brokers to understand the market and what the property might sell for today.

If, however, you are the asset manager for a multifamily development opportunity, your responsibilities might include working with your joint venture partner to ensure the property is being constructed on time, hiring a property management team to get the property leased up, and doing research to decide where rents should be set.

In asset management, you would also play a part in sourcing new investment opportunities by helping with due diligence. If a new asset is about to be acquired, asset management may be engaged to review the historical financials and competitive set to see what can be expected in the future, hire a property management team and sign contracts with vendors.

Another big part of asset management is selling properties. Asset management is responsible for working with portfolio management to determine the most opportune time to sell the asset, engaging a brokerage team, creating a disposition memorandum outlining the thesis to sell the property and successfully executing the sale.

In summary, the asset management includes the following responsibilities

• Executing property business plans
• Performing quarterly asset valuations
• Monitoring performance relative to budget
• Working with the acquisitions team to perform due diligence on new acquisitions
• Working with portfolio management to execute the business plan of the asset as it relates to the fund

Some firms combine the Acquisitions and Asset Management roles (called “ cradle-to-grave ”). This is more often the case at smaller firms and has its pros and cons. At firms with a cradle-to-grave structure, junior professionals get exposure to both parts of the business while maintaining the “prestige” of being an acquisitions professional.

Acquisitions is generally viewed as the more “prestigious” role, but Asset Management is where the nuts and bolts of owning real estate are learned.

It is not uncommon for Asset Management to feature more entry-level positions that can be leveraged into an acquisitions role down the road.

The career path within Real Estate Private Equity is similar to that of traditional PE. Just like traditional PE, there is a fairly standard hierarchy, and progression up the ladder is linear:

Where things get more complicated is the point of entry.

• In traditional PE , junior-level professionals are recruited from investment banks and mid-level professionals are recruited from MBA programs or internal promotions.
• In Real Estate PE , junior and mid-level professionals come from varying backgrounds, including investment banking, investment sales brokerage, asset management, and lending.

Large Real Estate Firms: Blackstone, Carlyle, Oaktree, etc.

The largest REPE firms – think Blackstone, Oaktree, Brookfield and Carlyle – have a standardized and predictable path of progression, enabling them to hire entire classes at a time. They also have the resources to formally train junior hires.

If your goal is to work in acquisitions at a large name-brand REPE firm, then your best bet is to secure a job in investment banking first.  Asset management is less competitive, and recruiting often happens directly out of undergrad.

• Acquisitions Recruiting : From investment banks (just like traditional PE).
• Asset management Recruiting: Directly out of college for asset management and lending roles.

Breaking into the Rest: “Traditional” Real Estate Private Equity Firms

Below the top 20 REPE firms, the recruiting process varies widely. Firms usually do not recruit out of college, only hire 1-2 professionals at a time on an “as-needed” basis prefer to recruit through employee networks and only use headhunters sparingly.

Because the recruiting process is much less standardized, many REPE firms look to:

• The investment sales brokerage firms they work with ( Cushman & Wakefield , CBRE , Eastdil , etc…)
• Real estate lenders with good junior training programs
• Larger REPE firms that may have a pool of junior asset management professionals looking to make the jump to acquisitions

The role hierarchy in REPE is similar to traditional private equity, with principals on top and associates on the bottom.

Day to Day Responsibilities

Principals are the most senior members of the investment team, usually reporting up to a Group Head or Chief Investment Officer. Their responsibilities are wide-ranging and include sourcing new transactions, participating in investor meetings, monitoring the asset management acquired properties they sourced, and managing the more junior investment professionals responsible for the due diligence on new investments.

Principals spend much of their time networking – whether that means attending industry conferences or traveling to major cities to get facetime with top brokers and potential partners.

Typical Promotion Path

Principals have a long track record of acquisitions experience. Many are homegrown and rose through the ranks from being junior associates and others lateral from competing REPE firms for a promotion from a Senior Vice President position.

The compensation range for a REPE Managing Director / Principal ranges between $500k – $750k. However, compensation at this level can vary drastically due to a meaningful amount of carried interest , the value of which is dictated by investment performance.

Senior Vice President / Director

Senior Vice President responsibilities are similar to that of Principals but relatively speaking, they spend more of their time executing and managing investments than they do sourcing transactions and interfacing with investors.

They will spend time reviewing investment memos and models and opining on key decisions related to acquired properties. A key delineating factor between Senior Vice Presidents and more junior professionals is their ability to negotiate and navigate the legal aspects involved in real estate investing. In addition, a good amount of time is spent developing a network to source transactions.

Senior Vice Presidents have a track record of acquisition experience. Most are promoted from internal Vice President positions, though they may have spent their time prior to being a Vice President at another REPE firm.

SVP / Director Compensation Range

The compensation range for a REPE SVP/Director ranges between $400k – $600k. As with the MD/Principal role, compensation at this level can vary drastically due to a meaningful amount of comp coming in the form of carry.

Vice President

Vice Presidents are typically the “quarterback” of the deal team who is held responsible for executing new acquisitions. Most of a Vice President’s time is spent managing junior professionals, overseeing the writing of investment memos, refining financial models , and negotiating and reviewing legal documents.

As Vice Presidents progress, they will begin to focus more of their time on developing their network with hopes of beginning to source new transactions.

The path to becoming a Vice President varies – the most straightforward is internal promotion from an Associate or Senior Associate position.

The Vice President level is also a common place for professionals to lateral from different REPE firms.

Lastly, some firms will hire MBA graduates at this level. Post-MBA Vice President positions are hard to come by and often go to graduates who have prior real estate experience.

VP Compensation Range:

The compensation range for a REPE VP ranges between $375k – $475k

Associate / Senior Associate

At most REPE firms, Associates are the more junior professionals, which means they are responsible for the majority of the analytical work.

Associates spend the majority of their time building real estate financial models and writing investment memos for potential acquisitions.

Pulling together the necessary data for these deliverables often requires touring the property and its competitive set (or oftentimes calling properties and secret shopping), digging up market data on REIS (general market data) and/or RCA (historical sales comparables), and reviewing documents provided during due diligence.

The financial model and investment memo are what is presented to investment committees to make the case for an investment. Depending on how the firm is organized, an Associate may also be involved in working with in-house lawyers on purchase and sale agreements (PSAs), loan documents, and joint venture agreements – in most cases, the Vice President on the transaction will lead the legal work.

Another responsibility that varies with firm organization is time spent on asset management. At some firms, an Associate on the acquisitions team would spend no time on asset management. At other firms, an Associate may spend a considerable amount of time on calls with property managers and tracking the monthly financial performance of different investments.

In short, Associates are the analytical horsepower and can expect to build financial models, write investment memos, collect market data, and manage due diligence.

As we’ve already mentioned, the typical entry point for an acquisitions associate at a large REPE is from a bulge bracket investment bank.

Some of the top REPE firms recruit Associates from real estate groups and M&A groups at investment banks.

The recruitment cycle is similar to that of traditional Private Equity, where the process is guarded by headhunters and all of the top firms recruit during a short window in the winter of each year .

For traditional real estate private equity firms, the most common entry point is through real estate asset management at a larger firm or investment sales at a top brokerage firm.

At larger firms, you should expect to be an Associate for 2-3 years, at which point the highest performers might be offered a promotion to Senior Associate or Vice President (again, firm dependent). Oftentimes, you’d be expected to go get an MBA before promotion.

So from start to finish, the path could look like this: 2 years Investment Banking Analyst, followed by 2-3 years Real Estate Private Equity Associate, then 2 years MBA and finally a return to a REPE firm as a Vice President.

At traditional (smaller) REPE firms, the path is similar, but instead of 2 years getting an MBA, the firm might promote you to a Senior Associate position prior to Vice President.

Compensation structure is generally structured similarly to traditional private equity – heavily weighted towards bonus, though compensation within real estate private equity tends to be more highly variable than traditional PE.

At the junior level, base and bonus are all cash , while at mid-to-senior levels, compensation typically includes a carried interest component.

A first-year acquisitions Associate with investment banking experience should expect a base salary in the range of $90,000 – $120,000, depending on location and firm size, and a year-end bonus that is approximately $100% of base pay, bringing the all-in compensation for most first-year acquisitions Associate will range between $160k – $230k.

At many firms, base salary doesn’t often increase meaningfully year-to-year, but bonuses can grow from 100% to as much as 200% in a few short years.

As you go further up their real estate private equity hierarchy, compensation grows similar to traditional PE:

Headhunters serve an important role (depending on who you ask) in the recruitment process. They spend their time locating, interviewing, and assessing the talent on the market. For Real Estate Private Equity firms, headhunters serve as a convenient place to look for the top talent in the industry. It is good practice to meet with all of the top headhunting firms so that you stay in the loop of potential REPE job opportunities. Below is a list of a few prominent headhunting firms active in the REPE space:

• Amity Search
• Glocap Search
• RETS Associates
• Ferguson Partners
• Rhodes Associates
• Crown Advisors
• Terra Search

So, you’ve landed a Real Estate Private Equity interview. If you’re interviewing at one of the larger REPE firms, the process will be similar to traditional private equity. Typically, there are 3 rounds of interviews, although they tend to be less structured than investment banking or traditional private equity.

Regardless of your entry point (undergrad, investment banking, asset management, brokerage, MBA), the interview structure is likely to be more or less the same. But, your entry point will likely inform where your interviewers are likely to push harder and where they might give you some grace. From my experience, the interview experience could differ in the following ways:

• Recent Undergraduates: The expectations on the technical side will be lower, but this does not mean you shouldn’t expect technical questions. Interviewers won’t expect a recent undergraduate to be nearly as technically sound as a former investment banker. Expect emphasis to be placed on how hard you’re willing to work, how hungry you are, and your interest in the real estate industry .
• Former Investment Bankers: The expectations on the technical side will be very high. Interviewers will expect very high performance on modeling tests. Most investment bankers will have spent their time analyzing REITs , which is very different from analyzing individual properties, which is much of the work at most Real Estate Private Equity firms, so interviewers will be more forgiving in this area.
• Asset Management & Brokerage: The expectations on real estate knowledge (the industry in general, opinions on property types, market trends, etc.) will be higher for this group than others, given a background working with individual real estate assets. Interviewers will also have high expectations on the technical side, though not as high as former investment bankers.
• MBAs: In my experience, interviewers are the most skeptical of MBAs. MBAs will be expected to perform highly on both the technical side and real estate knowledge aspect. For MBAs with prior real estate experience, this shouldn’t be a problem, but for MBAs changing industries, this will be a challenge, though not insurmountable.

Round 1: The informational interview

The informational interview is often with a Vice President or junior Principal who has been tasked with pulling together a pool of candidates. This initial interview is all about understanding your experience in real estate, your desire for working at the particular firm, and your long-term goals. You should be prepared to walk through your resume and ask good questions about the role and the firm.

Round 2: The technical interview

The technical interview is usually with an Associate who has been around for a while. A junior professional typically conducts this early technical screen because they are closer to the nuts and bolts of modeling and market analysis than the senior professionals. At this point, you should be prepared to answer technical and industry questions about how to value real estate, the main property types and how they differ from one another, and what type of real estate investments you think are in favor, among a number of other potential questions.

Round 3: Superday interviews

While the first two interviews are often done remotely, the final Superday interview is always conducted in person.

Of course, due to COVID-19, superdays in 2021 will likely all be virtual.

During a Superday , you are likely to interview all senior and mid-level professionals. They will continue to assess your technical capabilities as well as how you’ll fit into the team – at this point, everything is fair game (see the most common interview questions below).

The Superday is likely to conclude with a modeling test and potentially a case study.

The modeling test is often the biggest challenge for many candidates. Poor performance on the modeling test is often enough to derail an otherwise stellar candidate. But with enough preparation, anyone can ace these tests. The most common modeling test is 2-3 hours long, and you can expect to:

• Perform common Excel functions
• Demonstrate knowledge of modeling best practices
• Construct a real estate pro forma based on the provided assumptions
• Build an amortization table
• Build a joint venture waterfall
• Create a returns summary analysis and sensitivity

Some firms expect candidates to complete a case study in addition to the modeling test. Often, case studies are provided after a modeling test as a take-home exercise focused less on technical capability and more on market analysis and communicating an investment thesis. In other cases, the case study will be provided in combination with the modeling test and be conducted at the end of the Superday. A successful case study discusses the following:

• Property overview
• Market analysis and positioning
• Investment highlights
• Investment risks and mitigating factors
• Financial highlights
• Investment recommendation

Because Real Estate Private Equity is viewed as a niche segment of the private equity world, firms are focused on hiring people who have a real interest in the world of real estate.

Because of this, the first and biggest red flag is always “they don’t actually seem interested in real estate” – make sure you know your “why”.

Senior Associates and Vice Presidents are often tasked with asking technical questions, while Senior Vice Presidents and Principals usually try to understand a candidate’s background to identify what their strengths and weaknesses are.

In my experience, my technical capabilities have largely been tested on the modeling test and in-person interviews have tended to lean more towards how you think about real estate, ability to be organized and manage deadlines (closing a deal is project management 101), and my desire to do the job.

To the original point about red flags, you’d be surprised how many people don’t get the job because they simply “didn’t seem like they wanted this job”.

Unlike investment banking interviews , REPE interviews (and private equity interviews more broadly for that matter), tend to focus less on technical finance interview questions and rely on the modeling test and case study to confirm you’ve got the technicals down.

So if you are comfortable with the following 10 questions (and prepared for a modeling test and case study), you’re well on your way to acing your interview.

Why real estate?

The key to answering this question is to make your response personal and not cookie-cutter. With that said, responses almost always touch on real estate being “tangible”. Other ideas to consider are how large the real estate industry is and the expected growth in popularity among investors. From a personal perspective, think about your first time engaging with real estate or the role it plays in your life today.

What are the three ways of valuing real estate assets?

Cap rates, comparables, and replacement cost. Property value = property NOI / market cap rate. Comparable transactions can inform per-unit or per-square-foot valuations as well as current market cap rates. The replacement cost method dictates that you would never purchase a property for more than you could build it new. Each method has its weaknesses, and the three should be used together.

Learn More → Cap Rate Primer

Compare the cap rates and risk profiles for each of the main property types.

From highest cap rate (most risky) to lowest cap rate (least risky) – hotel, retail, office, industrial, multifamily. Hotels generally trade at the highest cap rates because cash flow is driven by nightly stays (extremely short-term leases) and more operationally intensive activities like restaurants and conferences. The creditworthiness of retail tenants is increasingly in question due to trends in e-commerce. The office sector is closely correlated to the broader economy but has longer-term leases. The industrial sector benefits from e-commerce trends, longer-term leases, and simple operations. Multifamily is thought of as the safest asset class because no matter how the economy is performing, people will need a place to live.

Walk through a basic cash flow proforma for a real estate asset.

A: The top line is revenue which will be primarily rental income but might also include other revenue lines and will almost always include deductions for vacancy and leasing incentives like rent abatements and concessions. After revenues, you subtract all operating expenses to get to NOI. After NOI, you subtract any capital expenditures and account for the purchase and sale of a property. This will get you to unlevered cash flow. To get from unlevered to levered cash flow, you subtract financing costs.

Describe the main real estate investment strategies.

There are 4 common real estate investment strategies: core, core-plus, value-add, and opportunistic.

• Core is the least risky and therefore targets the lowest returns. Core investments are typically newer properties in great locations with high occupancy and very creditworthy tenants.
• Core-plus is slightly riskier than core. Core-plus investments are similar to core but may feature minor leasing upside or require small amounts of capital improvements.
• Value-add is what most people think of when they hear “real estate investing”. Value-add investments are riskier deals and risk can come from various places – substantial lease-up, an older property needing meaningful capital improvements, a tertiary location, or poor credit tenants.
• Opportunistic is the riskiest and therefore targets the highest returns. Opportunistic investments include new development or re-development.

If I paid $100M for a building and it has 75% leverage, how much does it need to sell to double my equity?

$125M. With 75% leverage, you would invest $25M of equity and borrow $75M of debt. If you doubled your equity, you’d get $50M ($25M x 2) of cash flow to equity and still need to pay down $75M of debt. $50M of equity + $75M of debt = $125M sale price.

If you had two identical buildings that were in the same condition and right next to each other, what factors would you look at to determine which property is more valuable?

Since the physical attributes, building quality and location are the same, I would focus on the cash flows. First, I would want to understand the amount of cash flow. You can determine this by looking into what average rents are in the buildings and how occupied the buildings are. Despite the same location and quality, the management and leasing of each building could be different leading to differences in rents and occupancy. Second, I would want to understand the riskiness of the cash flows. To assess this, I would look at the rent roll to understand the creditworthiness of tenants and the terms of leases. The formula for value is NOI / cap rate. NOI will be informed by the amount of cash flow. The cap rate will be informed by the riskiness of the cash flows. The property with high cash flow and less risk will be valued higher.

If you purchase a property for $1M at a 7.5% cap rate, have 0% NOI growth throughout the hold period, and exit at the same cap rate after 3 years, what is your IRR?

We know that NOI / cap rate = value. If a property’s NOI and cap rate do not change, then the value also remains the same. Because there is 0% NOI growth and after 3 years, we are selling the property for the same 7.5% cap rate we purchased it for, we will sell the property for $1M, resulting in no terminal value profit. Since there is no terminal value profit, the only profit comes from interim NOI, which is simply $1M x 7.5% and remains constant each year. Because IRR is our annual return, in this case, our IRR equals our cap rate or 7.5%.

If you purchase a property for $1M at a 5.0% cap rate with 60% leverage and a 5.0% fixed cost of debt, what is the cash-on-cash yield?

Cash-on-cash yield = levered cash flow / equity invested and levered cash flow = NOI – cost of debt . 60% leverage implies $600k of debt and $400k of equity invested. A $1M purchase price at a 5.0% cap rate implies $50k of annual NOI. $600k of debt at a 5.0% fixed cost implies $30k annual cost of debt. $50k annual NOI – $30k annual cost of debt = $20k of levered cash flow. $20k levered cash flow / $400k equity invested = 5.0% cash-on-cash yield.

Do you have any questions for me?

This question usually ends an interview. As was highlighted in other parts of this article, the structure and strategy of real estate private equity firms can vary widely. This is your opportunity to gain a better understanding of the firm.

You should ask questions about how roles and responsibilities are structured:

• “Is there a strict delineation between the acquisitions and asset management team?”
• “How much exposure do junior acquisitions professionals get to the legal process of executing a deal?”
• “How much traveling do junior team members do?”

You should ask questions about the firm’s strategy:

• “Does the firm focus on a single risk profile (core, core-plus, value-add, opportunistic) or multiple strategies?”
• “Does the firm only do equity investing or both debt and equity?”
• “Does the firm do any development or only acquisitions?”

If you have the opportunity to speak with the most junior team members, you should try and get a sense for how they are enjoying their experience with the firm.

While acquisitions and asset management are the highest profile roles within real estate private equity, several other roles exist, namely:

• Investor relations
• Portfolio Management

Capital Raising and Investor Relations

Capital Raising(“CR”) & Investor Relations (“IR”), as the titles suggest, involve the all-important responsibilities of raising capital for the firm and managing the communications between the firm and the investors.

Some firms break out the Investor Relations (“IR”) and Capital Raising (“CR”) functions into separate teams while other firms combine them into one role. On the IR side, team members are responsible for managing the existing relationship between the firm and investors, via writing quarterly and annual reports, orchestrating annual investor conferences and quarterly update calls, writing acquisition and disposition notices. Meanwhile, the CR function is responsible for raising capital for the firm’s various funds and investments strategies, and often involves conducting research on and meeting with prospective investors to target.

At the junior levels in the CR/IR function, most of an analyst or associate’s time is spent preparing senior members of the team for meetings with investors, crafting concise messaging regarding investment performance through quarterly reports and update presentations for existing investors and creating pitchbooks for prospective investors.

For investor meetings, a junior person is responsible for creating, preparing and updating the meeting materials and briefing the senior members on their teams for speaking notes. Each day also entails tracking the team’s progress of new capital raised as a fund nears closing or working on marketing materials to prepare for a new fund’s launch.

Accounting and Portfolio Management

The Accounting and Portfolio Management role in REPE involves supporting the CR/IR, acquisitions, and asset management teams. Portfolio Management is often responsible for guiding the acquisitions team to target properties that fit the fund mandate and ensuring the creation of a diversified portfolio.

Specific responsibilities include providing fund performance data for investor reporting and requests (routine and ad-hoc), reviewing quarterly financial statements and investor reports, fund liquidity management (capital calls/distributions and credit facility), maintaining fund-level models, overseeing fund administrators and database management (asset-level reporting),

The day-to-day largely depends on if the firm is fundraising and/or deploying capital. For example, when a firm is fundraising, more time is spent supporting the investor relations team and providing firm performance data to share with potential clients.

Supporting the acquisitions and asset management team follows a more stable monthly and quarterly cadence. Monthly responsibilities include reviewing property management reports and maintaining a database management system to report asset-level performance to the firm.

Quarterly responsibilities relate more to financial reporting and investor updates. Generally, firms update their investors quarterly with updated fair market values. The portfolio management team manages the fair market value process.

Many firms outsource their fund accounting process to a fund administrator. The fund administrator prepares investor contributions and distributions at the direction of the portfolio management team, management fee calculations, and quarterly financial statements, all of which are reviewed by the accounting and portfolio management team.

• Google+
• Real Estate Investment Firms
• Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT)
• REIT Valuation Methods
• Net Operating Income (NOI)

I am preparing for the 2nd round interview for REPE, and this contents is extremely helpful!

Glad to hear it, thanks for letting us know!

If cap rates double over a period of 5 years, is there an approximate IRR?

Hi, Russ, It depends, but you need more info: Do you mean that NOI is doubling over 5 years, which would mean the property went up in value, or that the cap rate itself is doubling, which means the property would go down in value, assuming NOI does not increase? …  Read more »

What would the IRR be for each scenario?

Again, it depends on what the actual scenario is; IRR will differ based on the cap rate itself, how exactly the NOI grows, and so forth. You’ll have to specify a precise scenario in order to answer the question.

What if cap rates double from 5% to 10% and valuation remains unchanged?

So, yes, if cap rates doubled and valuation remained unchanged from start to finish, it would imply that the NOI had doubled as well over the same time.

If you purchase a property at a 5 cap and NOI remains constant, if you sell it in year 5 at a 10 cap, you will achieve an IRR of -6.35%

Yes, assuming a constant NOI and a doubling from 5 to 10%, that is correct, regardless of the amount of the NOI. But only if NOI does not change, and only if valuation does change (Russ’s final reply specified that valuation did not change).

How do you get an IRR of -6.35%?

Hi, Isaac, Assume an NOI of 100 per year for 5 years (does not change). Say you purchase at 5% cap rate (100/5% = 2000 purchase price), and sell at 10% (100/10% = 1000 sale price) at the end of year 5. You also earn 100 per year for 5 …  Read more »

We're sending the requested files to your email now. If you don't receive the email, be sure to check your spam folder before requesting the files again.

The Wall Street Prep Quicklesson Series

7 Free Financial Modeling Lessons

Get instant access to video lessons taught by experienced investment bankers. Learn financial statement modeling, DCF, M&A, LBO, Comps and Excel shortcuts.

Join 307,012+ Monthly Readers

Get Free and Instant Access To The Banker Blueprint : 57 Pages Of Career Boosting Advice Already Downloaded By 115,341+ Industry Peers.

• Break Into Investment Banking
• Write A Resume or Cover Letter
• Win Investment Banking Interviews
• Ace Your Investment Banking Interviews
• Win Investment Banking Internships
• Master Financial Modeling
• Get Into Private Equity
• Get A Job At A Hedge Fund
• Recent Posts
• Articles By Category

The Private Equity Case Study: The Ultimate Guide

If you're new here, please click here to get my FREE 57-page investment banking recruiting guide - plus, get weekly updates so that you can break into investment banking . Thanks for visiting!

The private equity case study is an especially intimidating part of the private equity recruitment process .

You’ll get a “case study” in virtually any private equity interview process , whether you’re interviewing at the mega-funds (Blackstone, KKR, Apollo, etc.), middle-market funds , or smaller, startup funds.

The difference is that each one gives you a different type of case study, which means you need to prepare differently:

What Should You Expect in a Private Equity Case Study?

There are three different types of “case studies”:

• Type #1: A “ paper LBO ,” calculated with pen-and-paper or in your head, in which you build a simple leveraged buyout model and use round numbers to guesstimate the IRR.
• Type #2: A 1-3-hour timed LBO modeling test , either on-site or via Zoom and email. This is a pure speed test , so proficiency in the key Excel shortcuts and practice with many modeling tests are essential.
• Type #3: A “take-home” LBO model and presentation, in which you might have a few days up to a week to pick a company, research it, build a model, and make a recommendation for or against an acquisition of the company.

We will focus on the “take-home” private equity case study here because the other types already have their own articles/tutorials or will have them soon.

If you’re interviewing within the fast-paced, on-cycle recruiting process with large funds in the U.S. , you should expect timed LBO modeling tests (type #2).

If the firm interviews dozens of candidates in a single weekend, there’s no time to give everyone open-ended case studies and assess them.

You might also get time-pressured LBO modeling tests in early rounds in other financial centers, such as London .

The open-ended case studies – type #3 – are more common at smaller funds, in off-cycle recruiting, and outside the U.S.

Although you have more time to complete them, they’re significantly more difficult because they require critical thinking skills and outside research.

One common misconception is that you “need” to build a complex model for these case studies.

But that is not true at all because they’re judging you mostly on your investment thesis , your presentation, and your ability to answer questions afterward.

No one cares if your LBO model has 200 rows, 500 rows, or 5,000 rows – they care about how well you make the case for or against the company.

This open-ended private equity case study is often the final step between the interview and the job offer, so it is critically important.

The Private Equity Case Study, in Parts

This is another technical tutorial, so I’ve embedded the corresponding YouTube video below:

Table of Contents:

• 4:32: Part 1: Typical Case Study Prompt
• 6:07: Part 2: Suggested Time Split for a 1-Week Case Study
• 8:01: Part 3: Screening and Selecting a Company
• 14:16: Part 4: Gathering Data and Doing Industry Research
• 22:51: Part 5: Building a Simple But Effective Model
• 26:32: Part 6: Drafting an Investment Recommendation

Files & Resources:

• Case Study Prompt (PDF)
• Private Equity Case Study Slides (PDF)
• Cars.com – Highlighted 10-K (PDF)
• Cars.com – Investor Presentation (PDF)
• Cars.com – Excel Model (XL)
• Cars.com – Investment Recommendation Presentation (PDF)

We’re going to use Cars.com in this example, which is one of the many case studies in our Advanced Financial Modeling course:

Advanced Financial Modeling

Learn more complex "on the job" investment banking models and complete private equity, hedge fund, and credit case studies to win buy-side job offers.

The full course includes a detailed, step-by-step walkthrough rather than this summary, an additional advanced LBO model, and other complex case studies for investment banking, hedge funds, and credit.

Part 1: Typical Private Equity Case Study Prompt

In some cases, they’ll give you a company to analyze, but in others, you’ll have to screen for companies yourself and pick one.

It’s easier if they give you the company and the supporting documents like the Information Memorandum , but you’ll also have less time to complete the case study.

The prompt here is very open-ended: “We like these types of deals and companies, so pick one and present it to us.”

The instructions are helpful in one way: they tell us explicitly not to build a full 3-statement model and to focus on the market and strategy rather than an “extremely complex model.”

They also hint very strongly that the model must include sensitivities and/or scenarios:

Part 2: Suggested Time Split for a 1-Week Private Equity Case Study

You have 7 days to complete this case study, which may seem like a lot of time.

But the problem is that you probably don’t have 8-12 hours per day to work on this.

You’re likely working or studying full-time, which means you might have 2-3 hours per day at most.

So, I would suggest the following schedule:

• Day #1: Read the document, understand the PE firm’s strategy, and pick a company to analyze.
• Days #2 – 3: Gather data on the company’s industry, its financial statements, its revenue/expense drivers, etc.
• Days #4 – 6: Build a simple LBO model (<= 300 rows), ideally using an existing template to save time.
• Day #7: Outline and draft your presentation, let the numbers drive your decisions, and support them with the qualitative factors.

If the presentation is shorter (e.g., 5 slides rather than 15) or longer, you could tweak this schedule as needed.

But regardless of the presentation length, you should spend MORE time on the research, data gathering, and presentation than on the LBO model itself.

Part 3: Screening and Selecting a Company

The criteria are simple and straightforward here: “The firm aims to find undervalued companies with stagnant or declining core businesses that can be acquired at reasonable valuation multiples and then turn them around via restructuring, divestitures , and add-on acquisitions.”

The industry could be consumer, media/telecom, or software, with an ideal Purchase Enterprise Value of $500 million to $1 billion (sometimes up to $2 billion).

Reading between the lines, I would add a few criteria:

• Consistent FCF Generation and 10-20%+ FCF Yields: Strategies such as turnarounds and add-on acquisitions all require cash flow. If the company doesn’t generate much Free Cash Flow , it will have to issue Debt to fund these strategies, which is risky because it makes the deal very dependent on the exit multiple.
• Relatively Lower EBITDA Multiples: If the company has a “stagnant or declining” core business, you don’t want to pay 20x EBITDA for it. An ideal range might be 5-10x, but 10-15x could be OK if there are good growth opportunities. The IRR math also gets tougher at high EBITDA multiples because the maximum Debt in most deals is 5-6x.
• Clean Financial Statements and Enough Detail for Revenue and Expense Projections: You don’t want companies with 2-page-long Cash Flow Statements or Balance Sheets with 100 line items; you can’t spare the time required to simplify and consolidate these statements. And you need some detail on the revenue and expenses because forecasting revenue as a simple percentage Year-Over-Year (YoY) growth rate is a bad idea in this context.

We used this process to screen for companies here:

• Step 1: Do a high-level screen of companies in these 3 sectors based on industry, Equity Value or Enterprise Value, and geography.
• Step 2: Quickly review the list of ~200 companies to narrow the sector.
• Step 3: After picking a specific sector, narrow the choices to the top few companies and pick one of them.

In software , many of the companies traded at very high multiples (30x+ EBITDA), and others had negative EBITDA , so we dropped this sector.

In consumer/retail , the companies had more reasonable multiples (5-10x), but most also had low margins and weak FCF generation.

And in media/telecom , quite a few companies had lower multiples, but the FCF math was challenging because many companies had high CapEx requirements (at least on the telecom side).

We eliminated companies with very high multiples, negative EBITDA, and exorbitant CapEx, which left this set:

Within this set, we then eliminated companies with negative FCF, minimal information on revenue/expenses, somewhat-higher multiples, and those whose businesses were declining too much (e.g., 20-30% annual declines).

We settled on Cars.com because it had a 9.4x EBITDA multiple at the time of this screen, a declining business with modest projected growth, 25-30% margins, and reasonable FCF generation with FCF yields between 10% and 15%.

If you don’t have Capital IQ for this exercise, you’ll have to rely on FinViz and use P / E multiples as a proxy for EBITDA multiples.

You can click through to each company to view the P / FCF multiples, which you can flip around to get the FCF yields.

In this case, don’t even bother looking for revenue and expense information until you have your top 2-3 candidates.

Part 4: Gathering Data and Doing Industry Research

Once you have the company, you can spend the next few days skimming through its most recent annual report and investor presentation, focusing on its financial statements and revenue/expense drivers.

With Cars.com, it’s clear that the company’s “Dealer Customers” and Average Revenue per Dealer will be key drivers:

The company also has significant website traffic and earns advertising revenue from that, but it’s small next to the amount it earns from charging car dealers to use its services:

It’s clear from this quick review that we’ll need some outside research to estimate these drivers, as the company’s filings and investor presentation have little.

Fortunately, it’s easy to Google the number of new and used car dealers in the U.S. and estimate the market size and share like that:

The company’s market share has been declining , and we expect that trend to continue, but it’s not clear how rapid the decline will be.

Consumers are increasingly buying directly from other consumers, and dealers have less reason to use the company’s marketplace services than in past years.

We create an area for these key drivers, with scenarios for the most uncertain one:

You might be wondering why there’s no assumed uptick in market share since this is supposed to be a “turnaround” case study.

The short answer is that we think the company is unlikely to “turn around” its core business in this time frame, so it will have to move into new areas via bolt-on acquisitions .

For example, maybe it could acquire smaller firms that sell software and services to dealers, or it could acquire physical or online car dealerships directly.

Another option is to acquire companies that can better monetize Cars.com’s large and growing web traffic – such as companies that sell auto finance leads.

As part of this process, we also need to research smaller companies to acquire, but there isn’t much to say about this part.

It comes down to running searches on Capital IQ for smaller companies in related industries and entering keywords like “auto” in the business description field.

In terms of the other financial statement drivers , many expenses here are simple percentages of revenue, but we could also link them to the employee count.

We also link the website traffic to the sales & marketing spending to capture the spending required for growth in that area.

Finally, we need to input the financial statements for the company, which is not that hard since they’re already fairly clean:

It might be worth consolidating a few items here, but the Income Statement and partial Cash Flow Statement are mostly fine, which means the Excel versions are close to the ones in the annual report.

Part 5: Building a Simple But Effective Model

The case study instructions state that a full 3-statement model is not necessary – but even if they had not, such a model would rarely be worthwhile.

Remember that LBO models, just like DCF models , are based on cash flow and EBITDA multiples ; the full statements add almost nothing since you can track the Cash and Debt balances separately.

In terms of model complexity, a single-sheet LBO with 200-300 rows in Excel is fine for this exercise.

You’re not going to get “extra credit” for a super-complex LBO model that takes days to understand.

The key schedules here are:

• Transaction Assumptions – Including the purchase price, exit assumptions, scenarios, and tranches of debt. Skip the working capital adjustment unless they specifically ask for it. For more on these nuances, see our coverage of Enterprise Value vs. purchase price and cash-free debt-free deals .
• Sources & Uses – Short and simple but required to calculate the Investor Equity.
• Revenue, Expense, and Cash Flow Drivers – These don’t need to be super-complex; the goal is to go beyond projecting revenue as a simple percentage growth rate.
• Income Statement and Partial Cash Flow Statement – The goal is to calculate Free Cash Flow because that drives Debt repayment and Cash generation in an LBO.
• Add-On Acquisitions – These are part of the “turnaround strategy” in this deal, so they’re quite important.
• Debt Schedule – This one is quite simple here because the deal is not dependent on financial engineering.
• Returns Calculations – The IPO vs. M&A exit options add a bit of complexity.
• Sensitivity Tables – It’s difficult to draft the investment recommendation without these.

Skip anything that makes your life harder, such as circular references in Excel (to avoid these, use the beginning Cash and Debt balances to calculate interest).

We pay special attention to the add-on acquisitions here, with support for their revenue and EBITDA contributions:

The Debt Schedule features a Revolver, Term Loans, and Subordinated Notes:

The Returns Calculations are also simple; we do assume a bit of Multiple Expansion because of the company’s higher growth rate by the end:

Could we simplify this model even further?

I don’t think the M&A vs. IPO exit options mentioned above are necessary, and we could also drop the “Growth” vs. “Value” options for the add-on acquisitions:

Especially if we recommend against the deal, it’s not that important to analyze which type of add-on acquisition works best.

It would be more difficult to drop the scenarios and Excel sensitivity tables , but we could restructure them a bit and fold the scenario into a sensitivity table.

All investing is probabilistic, and there’s a huge range of potential outcomes – so it’s difficult to make a serious investment recommendation without examining several outcomes.

Even if we think this deal is spectacular, we must consider cases in which it goes poorly and how we might reduce those risks.

Part 6: Drafting an Investment Recommendation

For a 15-slide recommendation, I would recommend this structure:

• Slides 1 – 2: Recommendation for or against the deal, your criteria, and why you selected this company.
• Slides 3 – 7: Qualitative factors that support or refute the deal (market, competition, growth opportunities, etc.). You can also explain your proposed turnaround strategy, such as the add-on acquisitions, here.
• Slides 8 – 13: The numbers, including a summary of the LBO model, multiples vs. comps (not a detailed valuation), etc. Focus on the assumptions and the output from the sensitivity tables.
• Slide 14: Risk factors for a positive recommendation, and the counter-factual (“what would change your mind?”) for a negative one. You can also explain the potential impact of each risk on the returns and how you could mitigate these risks.
• Slide 15: Restate your conclusions from Slide 1 and present your best arguments here. You could also change the slide formatting or visuals to make it seem new.

“OK,” you say, “but how do you actually make an investment decision?”

The easiest method is to set criteria for the IRR or multiple of invested capital in each case and say, “Yes” if the deal achieves those numbers and “No” if it does not.

For example, maybe the targets are a 30% IRR in the Upside case, a 20% IRR in the Base case, and a 1.0x multiple in the Downside case (i.e., avoid losing money).

We do achieve those numbers in this deal, but the decision could go either way because the deal is highly dependent on the add-on acquisitions.

Without these acquisitions, the deal does not work; the IRR falls by 10%+ across all the scenarios and turns negative in the Downside case.

We need at least 5 good acquisition candidates matching very specific financial profiles ($100 million Purchase Enterprise Value and a 15x EBITDA purchase multiple with 10% revenue growth or 5x EBITDA with 3% growth).

The presentation includes some examples of potential matches:

While these examples are better than nothing, the case is not that strong because:

• Most of these companies are too big or too small to fit into the strategy proposed here of ~$100 million in annual acquisitions.
• The acquisition strategy is unclear ; acquiring and integrating dealerships (even online ones) would be very, very different from acquiring software/data/media companies.
• And since the auto software market is very niche, there’s probably not a long list of potential acquisition candidates beyond the few we found.

We end up saying, “Yes” in this recommendation, but you could easily reach the opposite conclusion because you believe the supporting data is weak.

In short: For a 1-week open-ended case study, this approach is fine, but this specific deal would probably not stand up to a more detailed on-the-job analysis.

The Private Equity Case Study: Final Thoughts

Similar to time-pressured LBO modeling tests, you can get better at the open-ended private equity case study by “putting in the reps.”

But each rep is more time-consuming, and if you have a demanding full-time job, it may be unrealistic to complete multiple practice case studies before the real thing.

Also, even with significant practice, you can’t necessarily reduce the time required to research an industry and specific companies within it.

So, it’s best to pick companies and industries you already know and have several Excel and PowerPoint templates ready to go.

If you’re targeting smaller funds that use off-cycle recruiting, the first part should be easy because you should be applying to funds that match your industry/deal/client background.

And if not, you can always make a lateral move to a bulge bracket bank and interview at the larger funds if you prefer the private equity case study in “speed test” form.

If you liked this article, you might be interested in:

• Private Equity Value Creation : Equally Viable Alternative to PE Deal Teams?
• The Growth Equity Case Study: Real-Life Example and Tutorial
• The Full Guide to Healthcare Private Equity, from Careers to Contradictions
• Healthcare Investment Banking: The Best Group to Check Into When Human Civilization is Collapsing?

About the Author

Brian DeChesare is the Founder of Mergers & Inquisitions and Breaking Into Wall Street . In his spare time, he enjoys lifting weights, running, traveling, obsessively watching TV shows, and defeating Sauron.

Free Exclusive Report: 57-page guide with the action plan you need to break into investment banking - how to tell your story, network, craft a winning resume, and dominate your interviews

Master Private Equity & Hedge Fund Modeling

Complete advanced M&A, valuation, and LBO models with 8+ global case studies and get stock pitches and investment recommendations.

• 0 Shopping Cart

Watch Me Solve a REPE Technical Interview Modeling Test (Updated July 2024)

What better way to spend some free time over the Thanksgiving holiday, than to record myself completing a real estate private equity technical interview exercise! While I’ve offered help with the real estate technical interview in the past, I’ve never just grabbed an actual technical interview case study and walked our readers through how I would complete it. So, in this video, I spend an hour and 15 minutes doing just that. Follow along by downloading the companion Excel file.

Note: The file for download has been updated to v1.3. The latest version includes several small error fixes and a third worksheet that includes an optional Operating Shortfall reserve. See version notes at the end of this post.

Are you an Accelerator member? See capstone courses 16, 17, and 18 of the core curriculum for detailed instruction on how to build models similar to that built in this Watch Me Build. Not yet an Accelerator member? Consider joining the real estate financial modeling training program used by top real estate companies and elite universities to train the next generation of CRE professionals.

If you’re reading this, you’ll probably also find value in our ‘ How to Prepare for a Real Estate Technical Interview ‘ post.

Source of the Technical Interview Case Study (Modeling Exercise)

So, I was lurking on WSO earlier this week, and I came across a thread from someone requesting help to prepare for a real estate technical interview. Well, about four comments into the thread, a contributor (Yakehito) shared a ‘Modeling Exercise’ he’d been given as part of a top tier REPE company’s interview process. According to Yakehito, he/she had been provided with nothing more than a blank Excel file, a two-hour window, and a list of assumptions. You can find them here (as well as re-posted below).

So, reading through the assumptions, I thought “our readers would probably find it useful if I were to do this exercise and record myself while I do it.” So that is exactly what I’ve done. Below, you’ll find the assumptions from the aforementioned thread, together with a video I recorded (warning: it’s long and boring!) and the finished product for you to download and follow along as you watch.

Modeling Exercise Assumptions

All inputs below should be flexible assumptions

Development Program

• 200,000 SF office building
• Land purchase price: $20M ($100 per FAR )
• Closing Costs: 1% of purchase price
• Hard Costs : $300 psf
• Soft Costs : (excluding TI’s , LC ’s and Debt): 15% of hard costs
• TI ’s: $60 psf – paid at tenant occupancy
• LC’s: $18 psf – paid six months before tenant occupancy

Construction & Lease-up

• 24 Month Construction Period, beginning at land close date
• Costs spent evenly over construction period
• 2 Tenant Lease-up of equal size (one tenant at construction completion; one 6 months after completion)
• Lease up to 95%
• Rent $4.25 NNN (I’m assuming monthly)
• Free Rent : 3 months free
• Annual rental bumps: 3%
• Annual Operating Expenses during Lease-Up: $16 psf

Debt Assumptions

• Rate: 5% all-in interest rate
• All equity drawn first; then debt
• Use available cash flow to offset debt costs, as available

Hold Period:

• 5 years after stabilization
• Exit Cap Rate : 5.5%
• Transaction Fees: 1.5%

Joint Venture Structure

• LP invests 95% of required equity / GP invests 5%
• All cash flows are distributed 95/5 until the LP has achieved a 12% IRR
• Any excess cash flow thereafter is distributed 20% to the GP and 80% to the LP

Required Output

• Required Project Equity, Net Profit,  IRR  and ROC (Return on Capital)
• Required LP (after promote ) Equity, Net Profit,  IRR  and ROC (Return on Capital)

What This Is and Is Not

The finished model that comes out of this exercise is not meant to be used for actual deals and likely contains errors – I knocked it out in less than two hours. And while I performed error checks along the way, I have not thoroughly audited it for errors.

With that said, for those preparing for a real estate technical interview, I think watching and listening to how I would approach this exercise will be really helpful for you as you craft your own strategy and develop your own techniques. I’ve said this before, but I learn the most when I’m looking over someone else’s shoulder watching them model, and then implementing what I learned from them into my own modeling. So hopefully, you’ll find educational value in this exercise.

Video – Watch Me Tackle a Real Estate Modeling Exercise in Excel

Follow Along using the Excel File from the Video

To get the most out of this video, I highly recommend you download the Excel file I use in the video. In that Excel file, you’ll find four tabs.

• Versions. The versions tab alerts you to any changes that have been made to the file since I first recorded this tutorial
• Modeling Exercise Complete. This tab contains the complete file from the tutorial. I’ve only made minor corrections since recording the video. See Version Notes below.
• Modeling Exercise Template. Use this blank worksheet to follow along.
• Alt_With_Operating_Shortfall. Since recording this tutorial, a member of our Accelerator program asked about adding an Operating Shortfall reserve to the development budget. This fourth worksheet includes that addition (red font cells have been changed from the original).

Create Your Own Case Study

After following along with this “Watch Me Solve,” you can try your hand at your own practice test by using our Real Estate Case Study Creator GPT . This advanced tool generates comprehensive real estate case studies and custom modeling tests, allowing you to practice and refine your skills in a real-world context. Enhance your proficiency, build confidence, and ensure you’re interview-ready with tailored scenarios and tests that mimic the challenges you’ll face in the industry.

Download the Companion File

To make this ‘Watch Me Build’ file accessible to everyone, it is offered on a “Pay What You’re Able” basis with no minimum (enter $0 if you’d like) or maximum (your support helps keep the content coming – similar real estate course modules sell for $100 – $300+). Just enter a price together with an email address to send the download link to, and then click ‘Continue’. If you have any questions about our “Pay What You’re Able” program or why we offer our models on this basis, please reach out to either Mike  or  Spencer .

Quick Note for Accelerator Members – Adding an Operating Shortfall Reserve

Are you an Accelerator member? Read further. If not, consider joining the Accelerator .

In the Accelerator forum, one of our members recently asked how to add an operating shortfall reserve to this model, such that the loan would pick up any operating shortfall during lease-up. In response to that question, I recorded a short video showing her how to add an operating shortfall reserve to this model.

If you’re an Accelerator Advanced member, you can find this video exercise as part of the ‘Additional Case Studies and Technical Interview Exams’ course in the ‘Career Advancement in Real Estate Endorsement.’

Now it’s important to point out that I purposely didn’t include operating shortfall in the development budget here. That is because modeling an operating shortfall reserve here would have added a level of complexity that the case didn’t expressly call for. And I did my best to keep this model as simple as possible.

But as a result of not including operating shortfall in the development budget, cell C26 (i.e. Equity as part of Total Development Sources) is less than cell D84 (i.e. total equity contributions over the hold period). This is intentional on my part – not an error – but it’s atypical for a merchant-build development model to not include operating shortfall in the development budget.

Version Notes

• Misc. updates to outdated/broken links
• Revised formula in row 29 to calculate Debt Service based on current loan balance (row 29), rather than max loan balance (cell C25)
• Removed unnecessary external links
• Updated Version tab
• Fixed issue where Total Contributions (cell B84) was labeled “Total Distributions”
• Fixed issue where Error Check formula was inadvertently written with ROUNDUP() instead of ROUND() function (cell C117)
• Added a tab with optional Operating Shortfall included in Development Budget (see Alt_With_Operating_Shortfall tab)
• Added Versions tab
• Initial release of this tutorial

About the Author: Born and raised in the Northwest United States, Spencer Burton has over 20 years of residential and commercial real estate experience. Over his career, he has underwritten $30+ billion of commercial real estate at some of the largest institutional real estate firms in the world. He is currently President and member of the founding team at Stablewood . Spencer holds a BS in International Affairs from Florida State University and a Masters in Real Estate Finance from Cornell University.

You might also like

Search A.CRE

Have a question or need help.

Visit our Help Section

Contact A.CRE

• Visit A.CRE Help
• Via LinkedIn

You Might Also Like

• Real Estate Modeling Courses
• Real Estate Financial Modeling
• A.CRE Job Board
• Careers in Commercial Real Estate
• Real Estate Education

A.CRE Library of Excel Models

• Browse Excel Models
• Login/Register
• View My Downloads
• Edit Account Details

Terms, Policies, and Disclaimer

• Privacy Policy
• Cookie Policy
• Terms of Use

Private Equity Case Study: Example, Prompts, & Presentation

Private equity case studies are an important part of the private equity recruiting process because they allow firms to evaluate a candidate’s analytical, investing, and presentation abilities. 

In this article, we’ll look at the various types of private equity case studies and offer advice on how to prepare for them. 

This guide will help you ace your next private equity case study, whether you’re a seasoned analyst or new to the field.

Types Of Private Equity Case Studies

Case studies are very common in private equity interviews, and they are a key part of the overall recruiting process.

While you’re extremely likely to encounter a case study of some kind during your recruiting process, there is considerable variety in the types of case studies you might face.

Below I cover the major types:

Take-home assignment

In-person lbo modeling assignment.

For this case study, you’ll get some company information (e.g. a 10-K or a CIM) and be asked to assess whether or not you’re likely to invest. 

Generally, you’ll get between 2-7 days to prepare a full presentation or investment memo with your recommendations that you’ll present to the interviewer.  To support your investment recommendation, you’ll be expected to complete a full LBO model .  The prompt may give certain details or assumptions to include in the model.

This type of test is most common during “off-cycle” hiring throughout the year, since firms have more time to allow you to complete the assignment. 

This is pretty similar to the take-home assignment. You’re given company materials, will build a financial model, and decide whether you would invest. 

The difference here is the time you’re given to complete the case. You’ll generally get between two to three hours, and you’ll typically complete the case study in the firm’s office, though some firms are becoming newly open to completing the assignment remotely. 

In this case, you’ll typically only complete an LBO model. There is usually no presentation or investment memo. Rather, you’ll do the model and then have a short discussion afterward. 

This is a shorter, more condensed version of an LBO model. You can complete a paper LBO with a piece of paper and a pen. Alternatively, you may be asked to discuss it verbally with the interviewer. 

Rather than using an Excel spreadsheet, you use an actual sheet of paper to show your calculations. You don’t go into all the detail but focus on the essence of the model instead. 

In this article, we’ll be focusing on the first two types of case studies because they are the most widely used. But if you’re interested, here is a deep dive on Paper LBOs . 

Private Equity Case Study Prompt

Regardless of the type of case study you’re asked to do, the prompt from the interviewer will ultimately ask you to answer: “would you invest in this company?”

To answer this question you’ll need to take on the provided materials about the company and complete a leveraged buyout model to determine whether there is a high enough return. Generally, this is 20% or higher. 

Usually, prompts also provide you with certain assumptions that you can use to build your LBO model. For example:

• Pro forma capital structure
• Financial assumptions
• Acquisition and exit multiples

Some private equity firms provide you with the Excel template needed for an LBO model, while others prefer you to make one from scratch. So be ready to do that. 

Private Equity Case Study Presentation

As you’ve seen above, if you get a take-home assignment as a case study, there’s a good chance you’re going to have to present your investment memo in the interview. 

There will usually be one or two people from the firm present for your presentation. 

Each PE firm has a different interview process, some may expect you to present first and then ask questions, or the other way around. Either way, be prepared for questions. The questions are where you can stand out!

While private equity recruitment is there to assess your skills, it’s not all about your findings or what your model says. The interviewers are also looking at your communication skills and whether you have strong attention to detail. 

Remember, in the private equity interview process, no detail is too small. So, the more you provide, the better. 

How To Do A Private Equity Case Study

Let’s look at the step-by-step process of completing a case study for the private equity recruitment process:

• Step 1: Read and digest the material you’ve been given. Read through the materials extensively and get an understanding of the company. 
• Step 2: Build a basic LBO model. I recommend using the ASBICIR method (Assumptions, Sources & Uses, Balance Sheet, Income Statement, Cash Flow Statement, Interest Expense, and Returns). You can follow these steps to build any model. 
• Step 3: Build advanced LBO model features, if the prompts call for it, you can jump to any advanced features. Of course, you want to get through the entire model, but your number 1 priority is to finish the core financial model. If you’re running out of time, I would skip or reduce time on advanced features.
• Step 4: Take a step back and form your “investment view”. I would try to answer these questions:
• What assumptions need to be present for this to be a good deal?
• Under what circumstances would you do the deal? 
• What is the biggest risk in the deal? (e.g. valuation, growth, and margins). 
• What is the biggest driver of returns in the deal? (e.g. valuation, growth, and debt paydown).

• 12+ video hours
• Excels & templates

PREMIUM COURSE

Become a Private Equity Investor

How To Succeed In A Private Equity Case Study

Here are a few of my tips for getting through the private equity fund case study successfully. 

Get the basics down first

It’s very easy to want to jump into the more complex things first. If you go in and they start asking you to complete complex LBO modeling features like PIK preferred equity, getting to that might be on the top of your list. 

But I recommend taking a step back and starting with the fundamentals. Get that out the way before moving on to the complicated stuff. 

The fundamentals ground you, getting you through the things you know you can do easily. It also gives you time to really think about those complex ideas. 

Show nuanced investment judgment; don’t be too black-and-white

When giving your investment recommendation for a private equity fund you shouldn’t be giving a simple yes or no. 

It’s boring and gives you no space to elaborate. Instead, go in with what price would make you interested in investing and why. Don’t be shy to dig in here. 

Know where there is a value-creation opportunity in the deal, and mention the key assumptions you need to believe to create that value.

Additionally, if you are recommending that the investment move forward then bring up things you would want to know before closing a deal. You can highlight the key risks of the investment, or key things you’d want to ask management if you could meet with them. 

At the end of the day, financial modeling is a commodity skill.  Every investor can do it.  What will really set you apart is how you think about the deals, and the nuance you bring to analyzing them. 

You win by talking about the model

Along those lines, you don’t win by building the best model. Modeling is just a check-the-box thing in the interview process to show you can do it. The interviewers need to know you can do the basics with no glaring errors. 

What matters is showing that you can discuss the investment intelligently. It’s about bringing a sensible recommendation to the table with the information to back it up. 

How Do I Prepare For A Private Equity Case Study?

There is no one-size-fits-all when it comes to preparing for a private equity case study. Everyone is different. 

However, the best thing you can do is PRACTICE, PRACTICE, and more PRACTICE!

I know of a recent client that successfully obtained an offer from multiple mega funds . She practiced until she was able to build 10 LBO models from scratch without any errors or help … yes, that’s 10 models! 

Now, whether it takes 5 or 20 practice case studies doesn’t matter. The whole point is to get to a stage where you feel confident enough to do an LBO model quickly while under pressure. 

There is no way around the pressure in a private equity interview. The heat will be on. So, you need to prepare yourself for that. You need to feel confident in yourself and your capabilities. 

You’d be surprised how pressure can leave you stumped for an answer to a question that you definitely know.

It’s also a good idea to think about the types of questions the private equity interviewer might ask you about your investment proposal. Prepare your answers as far as possible. It’s important that you stick to your guns too when the situation calls for it, because interviewers may push back on your answers to see how you react.. 

You need to have your answer to “would you invest in this company?” ready, and also how you got to that answer (and what new information might change your mind).   

Another thing that gets a lot of people is limited time.  If you’re running out of time, double down on the fundamentals or the core part of the model.  Make sure you nail those.  Also, you can make “reasonable” assumptions if there’s information you wish you had, but don’t have access to. Just make sure to flag it to your interviewer 

How important is modeling in a private equity case study? 

Modeling is part and parcel of private equity case studies. Your basics need to be correct and there should be no obvious mistakes. That’s why practicing is so important. You want to focus on the presentation, but your calculations need to be correct first. They do, after all, make up your final decision. 

How can I stand out from other candidates? 

Knowing your stuff covers the basics. To stand out, you need to be an expert in showing how you came to a decision, a stickler for details, and inquisitive. Anyone can do the calculations with practice, but someone who thinks clearly and brings nuance to their discussion of the investment will thrive in interviews. 

Private equity case studies are a difficult but necessary part of the private equity recruiting process . Candidates can demonstrate their analytical abilities and impress potential employers by understanding the various types of case studies and how to approach them. 

Success in private equity case studies necessitates both technical and soft skills, from analyzing financial statements to discussing the investment case with your interviewer. 

Anyone can ace their next private equity case study and land their dream job in the private equity industry with the right preparation and mindset. If you’re looking to learn more about private equity, you can read my recommended Private Equity Books.

• Articles in Guide
• More Guides

DIVE DEEPER

The #1 online course for growth investing interviews.

• Step-by-step video lessons
• Self-paced with immediate access
• Case studies with Excel examples
• Taught by industry expert

Get My Best Tips on Growth Equity Recruiting

Just great content, no spam ever, unsubscribe at any time

Copyright © Growth Equity Interview Guide 2023

[email protected]

HQ in San Francisco, CA

Phone: +1 (‪415) 236-3974

Growth Equity Industry & Career Primer

Growth Equity Interview Prep

How To Get Into Private Equity

Private Equity Industry Primer

Growth Equity Case Studies

SaaS Metrics Deep Dive

Investment Banking Industry Primer

How To Get Into Investment Banking

How To Get Into Venture Capital

Books for Finance & Startup Careers

Growth Equity Jobs & Internships

Mike Hinckley

Growth stage expertise.

Coached and assisted hundreds of candidates recruiting for growth equity & VC

with Mike Hinckley

Premium online course

• Private equity recruiting plan
• LBO modeling & financial diligence
• Interview case studies

Register for Waitlist

FREE RESOURCES

Get My Best Growth Equity Interview Tips

No spam ever, unsubscribe anytime

Username or Email Address

Remember Me

Hacking the Case Interview

If you have an upcoming private equity case interview and are feeling stressed, overwhelmed, or unsure of what to do, we have you covered.

Private equity case interviews are a common type of case given in consulting interviews in addition to market entry case interviews , growth strategy case interviews , M&A case interviews , pricing case interviews , operations case interviews , and marketing case interviews .

Fortunately, private equity case interviews are fairly straight forward. They are very predictable and all cases generally follow the same steps to solve.

In this comprehensive article we’ll cover:

• What is a private equity case interview?
• Why do consulting firms give private equity case interviews?
• How to solve a private equity case interview
• Private equity case interview framework
• Private equity case interview examples
• Private equity case interview vs. M&A case interview
• Recommended private equity case interview resources

If you’re looking for a step-by-step shortcut to learn case interviews quickly, enroll in our case interview course . These insider strategies from a former Bain interviewer helped 30,000+ land consulting offers while saving hundreds of hours of prep time.

What is a Private Equity Case Interview?

A private equity case interview situates you in a business situation where you are helping a private equity firm decide whether or not to acquire a company to add to their portfolio.

For those that are unfamiliar with what private equity is, private equity firms are investment management companies that specialize in making investments in privately held companies or in public companies that they plan to take private.

This type of investment is called private equity because it involves investments made in privately held companies in contrast to publicly traded companies, which have shares that can be traded on public stock exchanges. However, private equity firms can also buy out a public company and take that company private.

Private equity firms raise capital from investors, including pension funds, endowments, and high-net worth individuals.

These private equity firms then identify potential companies to acquire or invest in, performing a thorough due diligence to ensure that the investments they make are attractive and will generate a high return on investment for their investors.

In a private equity case interview, you will be conducting a due diligence on a company that has been identified as a potential acquisition target.

The value that private equity firms provide include:

• Providing capital to companies that need funding for growth and expansion
• Bringing expertise and resources to help improve operational efficiency
• Providing strategic guidance and advice for business strategy and market positioning
• Providing access to an extensive network of industry contacts, potential customers, suppliers, distributers, retailers, and other stakeholders
• Using financial engineering techniques to optimize capital structure, including restructuring debt, recapitalizing the company, or implementing tax-efficient strategies

Why do Consulting Firms Give Private Equity Case Interviews?

Consulting firms give private equity case interviews because they closely simulate what private equity work at the firm looks like. If candidates can do well on a private equity case interview, they’ll likely succeed doing private equity due diligences for actual clients.

Case interviews in general are a way for consulting firms to assess whether candidates have the skills and capabilities to succeed in consulting.

In just a 30 to 45-minute case interview, interviewers can assess a variety of different skills that are critical to management consulting. Skills assessed in a case interview include:

Logical and structured thinking : Consultants need to be organized and methodical in order to work efficiently.

• Can you structure complex problems in a clear, simple way?
• Can you take tremendous amounts of information and data and identify the most important points?
• Can you use logic and reason to make appropriate conclusions?

Analytical problem solving : Consultants work with a tremendous amount of data and information in order to develop recommendations to complex problems.

• Can you read and interpret data well?
• Can you perform math computations smoothly and accurately?
• Can you conduct the right analyses to draw the right conclusions?

Business acumen : A strong business instinct helps consultants make the right decisions and develop the right recommendations.

• Do you have a basic understanding of fundamental business concepts?
• Do your conclusions and recommendations make sense from a business perspective?

Communication skills : Consultants need strong communication skills to collaborate with teammates and clients effectively.

• Can you communicate in a clear, concise way?
• Are you articulate in what you are saying?

Personality and cultural fit : Consultants spend a lot of time working closely in small teams. Having a personality and attitude that fits with the team makes the whole team work better together.

• Are you coachable and easy to work with?
• Are you pleasant to be around?

Consulting firms typically charge anywhere from 20-50% higher rates for private equity work compared to other types of consulting work. Therefore, consulting firms are always trying to sell more private equity work and really value candidates that show the potential to do private equity diligences.

Showing competency during a private equity case interview will make you a highly attractive candidate.

How to Solve a Private Equity Case interview

Although the exact industry or company that you will do a due diligence on during a private equity case interview will vary, all private equity cases typically follow the same five steps.

Once you have done a few private equity cases, you’ll quickly notice this pattern and be able to take your learnings from your previous cases and apply them to future private equity case interviews.

1. Understand the goal of the acquisition

The first step of any private equity case interview is to understand what is the goal of the acquisition. Only once you understand the goal or objective can you start to evaluate whether the acquisition or investment makes sense.

There are a number of different reasons why a private equity firm may want to acquire or invest in a company:

• Potential for growth : Private equity firms may target companies that have strong growth potential, including the potential to expand into new markets, introduce new products or services, or for increasing market share in existing markets
• Operational improvement : Private equity firms often specialize in operational optimization and efficiency. They may target companies with underperforming operations or inefficient processes to implement changes to improve profitability and performance
• Strategic fit : Private equity firms may pursue investments that align with their overall investment thesis or strategic objectives. This includes investing in companies that complement their existing portfolio holdings or fill a gap in industry coverage
• Turnaround opportunities : Private equity firms may also specialize in turning around distressed companies that are facing significant financial challenges or difficulties. They may see an opportunity to acquire a distressed company at a heavily discounted price
• Market timing : Private equity firms may also opportunistically invest in companies based on market conditions, lower than average valuation multiples, or industry trends. They may see attractive opportunities during periods of economic downturns or industry consolidation

2. Create a framework

The next step to solving a private equity case interview is to create a framework to guide your due diligence.

A case interview framework is a tool that helps you structure and break down complex problems into smaller, simpler components. You can think of a framework as brainstorming different ideas and organizing them into different, neat categories.

Instead of answering the overall question of whether the acquisition should be made, a framework can break up this large question into a few smaller, more manageable ones:

• Is the market that the acquisition target in attractive?
• How does the company perform relative to its competitors?
• Does the private equity firm have the skills or expertise to improve or turn around this company?
• Are there synergies that can be realized from this acquisition with other companies in the private equity firm’s portfolio?
• What are the major risks of this investment?
• What is the expected return on investment?

As you can see, using a framework helps you break down an ambiguous and daunting due diligence task into several more manageable steps.

3. Develop a hypothesis

Once you have developed a great framework to help you solve the private equity case, the next step is to develop a case interview hypothesis .

Based on the limited information that you have, what is your preliminary hypothesis on whether the company should be acquired?

Hypotheses are used in case interviews, as well as in consulting, because they are a very efficient way to solve problems. A hypothesis helps you focus your attention on the issues that matter most in developing a recommendation.

Many candidates find it challenging and intimidating to develop an initial hypothesis with very limited information. However, don’t be discouraged from this.

Know that it is completely acceptable for your initial hypothesis to be wrong.

Remember, the goal of coming up with an initial hypothesis is to help guide your analysis and discussion towards the right direction. You can think of your hypothesis as a strawman that you will either build support for or reject.

Your hypothesis will help you decide on an area of your framework to tackle first.

4. Build support for a recommendation

Now that you have a hypothesis for your private equity case interview, it is time to start building support for it or rejecting it.

As with any other type of case interview, you’ll likely need to do both case math as well as have qualitative discussions with the interviewer to discover more information and uncover key insights.

It is important that throughout the case, you are keeping track of all of the new information presented to you. It will be especially important to keep track of the major insights or key takeaways from each question that the interviewer asks you.

Keeping track of the major insights or key takeaways will make it significantly easier to develop a final recommendation at the end of the private equity case interview.

5. Deliver a recommendation

The last step in a private equity case interview is to develop a recommendation and present it to the interviewer.

Developing an ultimate recommendation is difficult because it requires you to review all of the work that you have done so far in the case interview and synthesize and distill all of it into just the most important points or takeaways.

You’ll also likely need to exercise business judgment to determine whether you should recommend acquiring the company or passing on the investment opportunity.

It is completely acceptable to ask the interviewer for a few minutes of silence so that you can collect your thoughts and deliver your recommendation in a clear, concise, and confident way.

When delivering your recommendation, make sure that you start with your recommendation first. Then, present the reasons or evidence that supports your recommendation. Finally, end by discussing potential next steps that you would look into if you had more time.

You don’t want to start your recommendation by summarizing all of your work and then stating a recommendation at the very end of your presentation.

This makes your recommendation excessively long and potentially unclear and confusing because the interviewer won’t know which way you are leaning towards until the very end.

Private Equity Case Interview Framework

The framework that you develop for your private equity case interview is the most important step of solving a private equity case interview.

Having a comprehensive and robust framework will make solving any private equity case interview easier. On the other hand, having an incomplete and poorly thought out framework will make solving the case significantly more challenging.

While you should not resort to purely memorizing frameworks for case interviews, there is a single framework that we recommend all candidates become familiar with. Many of the components of this private equity case interview framework can be applied to nearly any private equity case interview.

The major components of a private equity framework could include: market attractiveness, company attractiveness, private equity firm capabilities, synergies, financial implications, and risks.

• Market attractiveness : What is the market size of the market that the acquisition target is in? What is the growth rate of that market? How competitive is the market?
• Company attractiveness : What is the financial performance of the acquisition target? What are their key strengths or competitive advantages? What are their weaknesses?
• Private equity firm capabilities : Does the private equity firm have expertise in the industry or market that the acquisition target is in? Does the private equity firm have the capabilities or resources to improve the company’s performance?
• Synergies : Are there potential revenue synergies that can be realized with other companies in the private equity firm’s portfolio? Are there potential cost synergies that can be realized?
• Financial implications : Is the acquisition price fair? What is the potential return on investment? How long will it take the private equity firm to recoup their initial investment?
• Risks : What are the major risks of this investment? Can these risks be mitigated? What is the likelihood of these risks materializing?

An outstanding private equity case interview framework should include at least a few of these components, if not all of them.

However, make sure that you are customizing your private equity case interview framework based on the specific pieces of information and nuances of the case that you receive.

Private Equity Case Interview Examples

Below, we’ve provided examples of several different types of private equity case interviews you could see on interview day.

You can find more case interview examples in our articles on case interview examples and practice and MBA casebooks .

Private Equity Case Interview Example #1 : A private equity firm is interested in acquiring a technology startup with innovative products and a strong customer base. The firm sees significant growth potential in expanding the company's offerings to new markets and leveraging its technology to capture market share. Should they make this acquisition?

Private Equity Case Interview Example #2 : A private equity firm is considering acquiring a manufacturing company with inefficient operations and high production costs. The firm believes it can implement operational improvements, streamline processes, and reduce costs to enhance profitability and competitiveness. Should they acquire this manufacturing company?

Private Equity Case Interview Example #3 : A private equity firm that specializes in the healthcare sector is evaluating the acquisition of a pharmaceutical company with a promising drug pipeline. The firm's industry expertise and network could help accelerate the development and commercialization of the company's products. Should they make this acquisition?

Private Equity Case Interview Example #4 : A private equity firm wants to expand its presence in the consumer goods industry and is looking to acquire a well-established retail brand with a loyal customer base. The acquisition would complement the firm's existing portfolio and provide synergies in distribution, marketing, and brand positioning. Should they acquire this retail brand?

Private Equity Case Interview Example #5 : A private equity firm has identified a target company with substantial real estate assets and a strong cash flow from its core business. Should they make this acquisition?

Private Equity Case Interview Example #6 : A private equity firm that specializes in distressed investing is interested in acquiring a struggling automotive supplier facing liquidity challenges. The firm sees an opportunity to stabilize the business, renegotiate contracts, and implement cost-saving measures to return the company to profitability. What price should they bid for this potential acquisition?

Private Equity Case Interview Example #7 : A private equity firm has recognized a favorable market opportunity in the renewable energy sector and is considering the acquisition of a solar power company with a competitive cost structure and strong growth prospects. The firm aims to capitalize on increasing demand for clean energy solutions and government incentives. What is the most the private equity firm should bid on this solar company?

Private Equity Case Interview Example #8 : A private equity firm is evaluating the acquisition of a software company with a differentiated product offering and a growing customer base. The firm plans to invest in scaling the business and increasing market penetration, with the ultimate goal of exiting through a strategic sale or IPO to realize significant returns for its investors. How much should the private equity firm acquire this software company for?

Private Equity Case Interview vs. M&A Case Interview

Although private equity case interviews and M&A case interviews share many similarities, specifically that both are case interviews that involve deciding on whether to make an acquisition, there are some notable differences.

1. Long-term vs. short-term perspective

Private equity case interviews typically have a longer-term investment horizon since private equity firms may hold onto an investment for 5 to 10 or more years before selling. They are not heavily concerned with exactly how well the investment will perform in the first few years because they have a longer time horizon.

In contrast, for M&A case interviews, there is generally an expectation that a merger or acquisition will provide immediate tangible benefits to the company and shareholders.

2. Reasons for the acquisition

For private equity case interviews, candidates are often asked to develop an investment thesis for a potential acquisition. They will need to articulate why the target company represents an attractive investment opportunity and how the private equity firm can create value from the investment.

This may include identifying growth drivers, operational improvement opportunities, and synergies that can be realized with the existing portfolio.

In contrast, for M&A case interviews, candidates mainly focus on understanding the rationale behind a potential acquisition, including strategic fit, synergies, and market dynamics.

3. Different risk factors

In both private equity and M&A case interviews, candidates will need to give thought behind the potential risks of the acquisition. However, the major risks for a private equity firm making an acquisition vs. a company making an acquisition differ slightly.

For private equity acquisitions, major risks include: market risks, competitive threats, and execution risks. In contrast, for a merger or acquisition, major risks include company integration risks, legal risks, and regulatory compliance.

4. Exit strategies

Private equity case interviews often emphasize the importance of exit strategies since private equity firms typically aim to realize returns for their investors within a specific timeframe.

Therefore, for private equity case interviews, candidates may be asked to evaluate potential exit options, such as strategic sales, IPOs, and secondary buyouts. They may be asked to assess the timing and feasibility of each option.

For M&A case interviews, candidates may need to consider potential exit scenarios, such as divestiture or spin-offs, but the focus may be less on maximizing financial returns and more on strategic objectives.

Land Your Dream Consulting Job

Here are the resources we recommend to land your dream consulting job:

For help landing consulting interviews

• Resume Review & Editing : Transform your resume into one that will get you multiple consulting interviews

For help passing case interviews

• Comprehensive Case Interview Course (our #1 recommendation): The only resource you need. Whether you have no business background, rusty math skills, or are short on time, this step-by-step course will transform you into a top 1% caser that lands multiple consulting offers.
• Case Interview Coaching : Personalized, one-on-one coaching with a former Bain interviewer.
• Hacking the Case Interview Book   (available on Amazon): Perfect for beginners that are short on time. Transform yourself from a stressed-out case interview newbie to a confident intermediate in under a week. Some readers finish this book in a day and can already tackle tough cases.
• The Ultimate Case Interview Workbook (available on Amazon): Perfect for intermediates struggling with frameworks, case math, or generating business insights. No need to find a case partner – these drills, practice problems, and full-length cases can all be done by yourself.

For help passing consulting behavioral & fit interviews

• Behavioral & Fit Interview Course : Be prepared for 98% of behavioral and fit questions in just a few hours. We'll teach you exactly how to draft answers that will impress your interviewer.

Land Multiple Consulting Offers

Complete, step-by-step case interview course. Save yourself hundreds of hours.

How to prepare for the case study in a private equity interview

If you're  interviewing for a job in a private equity firm , then you will almost certainly come across a case study. Be warned: recruiters say this is the hardest part of the private equity interview process and how you handle it will decide whether you land the job.

Get Morning Coffee  ☕  in your inbox. Sign up here.

“The case study is the most decisive part of the interview process because it’s the closest you get to doing the job," says Gail McManus of Private Equity Recruitment. It's purpose is to make you answer one question: 'Would you invest in this company?'

When the case study interview starts, you usually be given a  'Confidential Information Memorandum'  (CIM) relating to a company the private equity fund could invest in. You'll be expected to a) value this company, and b) put together an investment proposal - or not. Often, you'll be allowed to take the CIM away to prepare your proposal at home.

 “The case study is still the most decisive element of the recruitment process because it’s the closest you get to actually doing the job.  Candidates can win or lose based on how they perform on case study. People who are OK in the interview can land the job by showing the quality of their thinking, ” says McManus. “You need to show that you can think, and think like an investor.”

"The end decision [on whether to invest] is not important," says one private equity professional who's been through the process. "The important thing is to show your thinking/logic behind answer."

Preparing for a PE case study has distinctive challenges for consultants and bankers. If you're a consultant, you need to, "make a big effort to mix your strategic toolkit with financial analysis. You need to prove that you can go from a strategic conclusion to a finance conclusion," says one PE professional. Make sure you're totally familiar with the way an  LBO model  works.

If you're a banker, you need to, "make a big effort to develop your strategic thinking," says the same PE associate. The fund you're interviewing with will want to see that you can think like an investor, not just a financier. "Reaching financial conclusions is not enough. You need to argue why certain industry is good, and why you have a competitive advantage or not. Things can look good on paper, but things can change from a day to another. As a PE investor, hence as a case solver, you need to highlight and discuss risks, and whether you are ready or not to underwrite them."

Kadeem Houson, partner at KEA consultants, which specialises in hiring junior to mid-level PE professionals, says: “If you’re a banker you’re expected to have great technical skills so you need to demonstrate you can think commercially about the numbers you plugged in.    Conversely, a consultant who is good at blue sky thinking might be pressed more on their understanding of the model. Neither is better or worse – just be conscious of your blank spots.”

Felix Beuttler, a former Goldman Sachs associate and founder of FinEx Academy, says bankers and consultants have different strengths and weaknesses when it comes to the case study interview. "Consultants are often too focused on the qualitiative elements and bankers are too focused on getting the numbers right," he says. Both need to prepare with a view to overcoming their weaknesses.

A good business or a good investment?

For McManus, one of the most important things to consider when looking at the case study is to understand the difference between a good business and a good investment. The difference between a good business and a good investment is the price. So you might have a great business but if you have to pay hugely for it it might not be a great business. Conversely you can have a so-so business but if you get it a good price it might make a great investment. “

McManus says as well as understanding the difference between a good business and a good investment, it’s important to focus on where the added value lies.  This has become a critical element for private equity firms to consider now that rates are higher, prices are still comparatively high, and adding value is more difficult. "In the case study it’s really important you think about where the value creation opportunity lies in this business and what the exit would be,” says McManus.

She advises candidates to be brave and state a specific price, provided you can demonstrate how you’ve arrived at your answer.

Another private equity professional says you shouldn't go out on a limb, though, and you should appear cautious: "Keep all assumptions conservative at all times so as not to raise difficult questions. Always highlight risks, downsides as well as upsides."

Research the fund – find the angle

One private equity professional says that understanding why an investment might suit a particular firm could prove to be a plus. Prior to the case study, check whether the fund favours a particular industry sector, so that when it comes to the case study, you can add that to the investment thesis. “This enables you to showcase you have read up on the firm’s strategy/unique characteristics Something that would make it more likely for the fund you’re interviewing with winning the deal in what’s a very competitive market, said the PE source, who said this knowledge made him stand out.

However, the primary purpose of the case study is to test the quality of your thinking - it is not to test you on your knowledge of the fund. “Knowing about the fund will tick an extra box, but the case study is about focusing on the three most critical things that will drive the investment decision,” says McManus. 

You need to think through these questions and issues:

Beuttler advises his students to assemble a deck filled with a particular set of slides, including investment highlights, investment risks, a value creation strategy, returns analysis and a clear conclusion. You will also want to include slides outlining the route to deriving a return on the investment.

We spoke to another private equity professional who's helpfully prepared a checklist of points to think about when you're faced with the case study. "It's a cheat sheet for some of my friends," he says.

When you're faced with a case study, he says you need to think in terms of: the industry, the company, the revenues, the costs, the competition, growth prospects, due dliligence, and the transaction itself.

The questions from his checklist are below. There's some overlap, but they're about as thorough as you can get.

When you're considering the industry, you need to think about:

- What the company does. What are its key products and markets? What's the main source of demand for its products?

- What are the key drivers in that industry?

- Who are the market participants? How intense is the competition?

- Is the industry cyclical? Where are we in the cycle?

- Which outside factors might influence the industry (eg. government, climate, terrorism)?

When you're considering the company, you need to think about:  

- Its position in the industry

- Its growth profile

- Its operational leverage (cost structure)

- Its margins (are they sustainable/improvable)?

- Its fixed costs from capex and R&D

- Its working capital requirements

- Its management

- The minimum amount of cash needed to run the business

When you're considering the revenues, you need to think about:

- What's driving them

- Where the growth is coming from

- How diverse the revenues are

- How stable the revenues are (are they cyclical?)

- How much of the revenues are coming from associates and joint ventures

- What's the working capital requirement? - How long before revenues are booked and received?

When you're considering the costs, you need to think about:

- The diversity of suppliers

- The operational gearing (What's the fixed cost vs. the variable cost?)

- The exposure to commodity prices

- The capex/R&D requirements

- The pension funding

- The labour force (is it unionized?)

- The ability of the company to pass on price increases to customers

- The selling, general and administrative expenses (SG&A). - Can they be reduced?

When you're considering the competition, you need to think about:

- Industry concentration

- Buyer power

- Supplier power

- Brand power

- Economies of scale/network economies/minimum efficient scale

- Substitutes

- Input access

When you're considering the growth prospects, you need to think about:

- Scalability

- Change of asset usage (Leasehold vs. freehold, could manufacturing take place in China?)

- Disposals

- How to achieve efficiencies

- Limitations of current management

When you're considering the due diligence, you need to think about: 

- Change of control clauses

- Environmental and legal liabilities

- The power of pension schemes and unions

- The effectiveness of IT and operations systems

When you're considering the transaction, you need to think about:

- Your LBO model

- The basis for your valuation (have you used a Sum of The Parts (SOTP) valuation or another method - why?)

- The company's ability to raise debt

- The exit opportunities from the investment

- The synergies with other companies in the PE fund's portfolio

- The best timing for the transaction

BUT: keep things simple.

While this checklist is important as an input and a way to approach the task, when it comes to presenting the information, quality beats quantity.  McManus says: “The main reason why people aren’t successful in case studies is that they say too much.  What you’ve got to focus on is what’s critical, what makes a difference. It’s not about quantity, it’s about quality of thinking. If you do 30 strengths and weaknesses it might only be three that matter. It’s not the analysis that matters, but what’s important from that analysis. What’s critical to the investment thesis. Most firms tend to use the same case study so they can start to see what a good answer looks like.”

Softer factors such as interpersonal skills are also important because if the case study is the closest thing you’ll get to doing the job, then it’s also a measure of how you might behave in a live situation.  McManus says: “This is what it will be like having a conversation at 11am  with your boss having been given the information memorandum the day before.  Not only are the interviewers looking at how you approach the case study, but they’re also looking at whether they want to have this conversation with you every Tuesday morning at 11am.”

The exercise usually takes around four hours if you include the modelling aspect, so there is time pressure. “Top tips are to practice how to think in a way that is simple, but fit for purpose. Think about how to work quickly. The ability to work under pressure is still important,” says Houson.

But some firms will allow you do complete the CIM over the weekend. In that case on one private equity professional says you should get someone who already works in PE to check it over for you. He also advises getting friends who've been through case study interviews before to put you through some mock questions on your presentation.

Have a confidential story, tip, or comment you’d like to share? Contact: +44 7537 182250 (SMS, WhatsApp or voicemail). Telegram: @SarahButcher.  Click here to fill in our anonymous form , or email [email protected]. Signal also available.

Bear with us if you leave a comment at the bottom of this article: all our comments are moderated by human beings. Sometimes these humans might be asleep, or away from their desks, so it may take a while for your comment to appear. Eventually it will – unless it’s offensive or libelous (in which case it won’t.)

Sign up to Morning Coffee!

The essential daily roundup of news and analysis read by everyone from senior bankers and traders to new recruits.

Boost your career

The man you must never mention in a private equity interview

Morning Coffee: Graduates joining banks on $120k salaries chased by firms paying $320k before they start. Moelis cancels Jonathan Kaye

Morning Coffee: Cause of death of banking associate disclosed. Family offices hiring juniors on $300k

Morning Coffee: HSBC sent rejected candidates an unfortunate email. Citi compliance officer says she was fired for whistleblowing

Morning Coffee: Citi exec who fired 5,000 bankers is gone herself. JPMorgan's new approach to graduate recruitment

Top students graduating from New York's top quant course are on $300k, down from $350k

Defunct Hong Kong hedge fund employees seek refuge at Citadel, Jump Trading

Goldman Sachs hired Les Lukenas, twin of BofA associate who died, as a summer intern

Banks barely budge bonuses for analysts despite increased workloads

A reminder that Credit Suisse's mighty fixed income trading business has been obliterated

Related articles

How to move from banking to private equity, by a former associate at Goldman Sachs

The banks with the best and worst working hours

Private equity pay: where the money has been made

Receive our daily roundup of news and analysis read by bankers, traders, and new recruits.

• Share full article

It Was a Hot Real Estate Trade. Now Investors Are Worried.

Drawn by the opportunity to invest with private equity firms, small investors rushed into real estate investment trusts. But the funds have lost some appeal as interest rates have climbed.

Credit... Peter Gamlen

Supported by

By Maureen Farrell

Maureen Farrell has covered the private equity industry for over a decade. She spoke to more than a dozen private equity executives, analysts, investors and short sellers while reporting this article.

• Aug. 12, 2024

Given the opportunity to park money with the world’s largest private equity firms, ordinary investors rushed in. Getting out might not be so easy.

The private equity firms began to seek out smaller investors almost a decade ago. It was a major shift for firms like Blackstone, Starwood Capital Group and KKR that had previously been funded by enormous pensions, endowments and sovereign wealth funds. But it was also a way for the big fund managers to grow their assets and rake in ever larger fees.

For the individual investors, who were directed to the new private funds by their wealth managers, the chance to invest with Wall Street’s elite was too good to pass up — even if it came with rules, like limits on withdrawals that would mean that getting money back in tough times might be a challenge.

The private equity firms had an allure, created by stellar track records, including during the 2008 financial crisis, and the fact that they had been off limits to ordinary (although wealthy) investors. One offering in particular captured people’s attention: private real-estate investment trusts, known as REITs, which own commercial or industrial properties and pay big dividends off the rental income they generate.

From 2017, when Blackstone introduced one of the first REITs backed by a private equity firm, through June, the two dozen or so of these private REITs raised more than $110 billion from investors, making them one of the hottest so-called alternative investments. The REITs were particularly appealing when interest rates were near zero, because they paid dividends of roughly 4 percent of assets or more.

But some of their allure was lost starting in 2022 when the Federal Reserve began to quickly raise interest rates. Even the least risky bond investments now pay out close to 4 percent, and rising interest rates have hammered the commercial property market that many REITs are invested in.

We are having trouble retrieving the article content.

Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and  log into  your Times account, or  subscribe  for all of The Times.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access.

Already a subscriber?  Log in .

Want all of The Times?  Subscribe .

Advertisement

Republish This Story

California Bill Would Require State Review of Private Equity Deals in Health Care

A bill pending in California’s legislature to ratchet up oversight of private equity investments in health care is receiving enthusiastic backing from consumer advocates, labor unions, and the California Medical Association, but drawing heavy fire from hospitals concerned about losing a potential funding source.

The legislation, sponsored by Attorney General Rob Bonta, would require private equity groups and hedge funds to notify his office of planned purchases of many types of health care businesses and obtain its consent. It also reinforces state laws that bar nonphysicians from directly employing doctors or directing their activities, which is a primary reason for the doctor association’s support.

Private equity firms raise money from institutional investors such as pension funds and typically acquire companies they believe can be run more profitably. Then they look to boost earnings and sell the assets for multiples of what they paid for them.

That can be good for future retirees and sometimes for mismanaged companies that need a capital infusion and a new direction. But critics say the profit-first approach isn’t good for health care. Private equity deals in the sector are coming under increased scrutiny around the country amid mounting evidence that they often lead to higher prices, lower-quality care, and reduced access to core health services.

Opponents of the bill, led by the state’s hospital association, the California Chamber of Commerce, and a national private equity advocacy group, say it would discourage much-needed investment. The hospital industry has already persuaded lawmakers to exempt sales of for-profit hospitals from the proposed law.

“We preferred not to make that amendment,” Bonta said in an interview. “But we still have a strong bill that provides very important protections.”

Email Sign-Up

Subscribe to KFF Health News' free Morning Briefing.

The legislation would still apply to a broad swath of medical businesses, including clinics, physician groups, nursing homes, testing labs, and outpatient facilities, among others. Nonprofit hospital deals are already subject to the attorney general’s review.

A final vote on the bill could come this month if a state Senate committee moves it forward.

Nationally, private equity investors have spent $1 trillion on health care acquisitions in the past decade, according to a report by The Commonwealth Fund. Physician practices have been especially attractive to them, with transactions growing sixfold in a decade and often leading to significant price increases. Other types of outpatient services, as well as clinics, have also been targets.

In California, the value of private equity health care deals grew more than twentyfold from 2005 to 2021, from less than $1 billion to $20 billion, according to the California Health Care Foundation. Private equity firms are tracking the pending legislation closely but so far haven’t slowed investment in California, according to a new report from the research firm PitchBook.

Multiple studies, as well as a series of reports by KFF Health News , have documented some of the difficulties created by private equity in health care.

Research published last December in the Journal of the American Medical Association showed a larger likelihood of adverse events such as patient infections and falls at private equity hospitals compared with others. Analysts say more research is needed on how patient care is being affected but that the impact on cost is clear.

“We can be almost certain that after a private equity acquisition, we’re going to be paying more for the same thing or for something that’s gotten worse,” said Kristof Stremikis, director of Market Analysis and Insight at the California Health Care Foundation.

Most private equity deals in health care are below the $119.5 million threshold that triggers a requirement to notify federal regulators, so they often slide under the government radar. The Federal Trade Commission is stepping up scrutiny, and last year it sued a private equity-backed anesthesia group for anticompetitive practices in Texas.

Lawmakers in several other states, including Connecticut, Minnesota, and Massachusetts, have proposed legislation that would subject private equity deals to greater transparency.

Not all private equity firms are bad operators, said Assembly member Jim Wood, a Democrat from Healdsburg, but review is essential: “If you are a good entity, you shouldn’t fear this.”

The bill would require the attorney general to examine proposed transactions to determine their impact on the quality and accessibility of care, as well as on regional competition and prices.

Critics note that private equity deals are often financed with debt that is then owed by the acquired company. In many cases, private equity groups sell off real estate to generate immediate returns for investors and the new owners of the property then charge the acquired company rent.

That was a factor in the financial collapse of Steward Health Care, a multistate hospital system that was owned by the private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management from 2010 to 2020, according to a report by the Private Equity Stakeholder Project, a nonprofit that supports the California bill. Steward filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in May. “Almost all of the most distressed US healthcare companies are owned by private equity firms,” according to another study by the group.

Opponents of the legislation argue it would dampen much-needed investment in an industry with soaring operating costs. “Our concern is that it will cut off funding that can improve health care,” said Ned Wigglesworth, a spokesperson for Californians to Protect Community Health Care , a coalition of groups fighting the legislation. The prospect of having to submit to a lengthy review by the attorney general, he said, would create “a chilling effect on private funders.”

Proponents of private equity investment point to what they say are notable successes in California health care.

Children’s Choice Dental Care, for example, said in a letter to state senators that it logs over 227,000 dental visits annually, mostly with children on Medi-Cal, the health insurance program for low-income Californians. “We have been able to expand to 25 locations, because we have been able to access capital from a private equity firm,” the group wrote.

Ivy Fertility, with clinics in California and eight other states, said in a letter to state senators that private investment has expanded its ability to provide fertility treatments at a time when demand for them is increasing.

Researchers note that private equity investors are hardly alone when it comes to health care profiteering, which extends even to nonprofits. Sutter Health , a major nonprofit hospital chain, for example, settled for $575 million in a lawsuit brought by then-Attorney General Xavier Becerra, for unfair contracting and pricing.

“It’s helpful to look at ownership classes like private equity, but at the end of the day we should look at behavior, and anyone can do the things that private equity firms do,” said Christopher Cai, a physician and health policy researcher at Harvard Medical School. He added, though, that private equity investors are “more likely to engage in financially risky or purely profit-driven behavior.”

This article was produced by KFF Health News , which publishes California Healthline , an editorially independent service of the California Health Care Foundation .  

Related Topics

• Health Industry
• California Legislature
• Connecticut
• Legislation
• Massachusetts

Copy And Paste To Republish This Story

By Bernard J. Wolfson August 13, 2024

A bill pending in California’s legislature to ratchet up oversight of private equity investments in health care is receiving enthusiastic backing from consumer advocates, labor unions, and the California Medical Association, but drawing heavy fire from hospitals concerned about losing a potential funding source.

The legislation, sponsored by Attorney General Rob Bonta, would require private equity groups and hedge funds to notify his office of planned purchases of many types of health care businesses and obtain its consent. It also reinforces state laws that bar nonphysicians from directly employing doctors or directing their activities, which is a primary reason for the doctor association’s support.

That can be good for future retirees and sometimes for mismanaged companies that need a capital infusion and a new direction. But critics say the profit-first approach isn’t good for health care. Private equity deals in the sector are coming under increased scrutiny around the country amid mounting evidence that they often lead to higher prices, lower-quality care, and reduced access to core health services.

Opponents of the bill, led by the state’s hospital association, the California Chamber of Commerce, and a national private equity advocacy group, say it would discourage much-needed investment. The hospital industry has already persuaded lawmakers to exempt sales of for-profit hospitals from the proposed law.

“We preferred not to make that amendment,” Bonta said in an interview. “But we still have a strong bill that provides very important protections.”

The legislation would still apply to a broad swath of medical businesses, including clinics, physician groups, nursing homes, testing labs, and outpatient facilities, among others. Nonprofit hospital deals are already subject to the attorney general’s review.

In California, the value of private equity health care deals grew more than twentyfold from 2005 to 2021, from less than $1 billion to $20 billion, according to the California Health Care Foundation. Private equity firms are tracking the pending legislation closely but so far haven’t slowed investment in California, according to a new report from the research firm PitchBook.

“We can be almost certain that after a private equity acquisition, we’re going to be paying more for the same thing or for something that’s gotten worse,” said Kristof Stremikis, director of Market Analysis and Insight at the California Health Care Foundation.

Not all private equity firms are bad operators, said Assembly member Jim Wood, a Democrat from Healdsburg, but review is essential: “If you are a good entity, you shouldn’t fear this.”

That was a factor in the financial collapse of Steward Health Care, a multistate hospital system that was owned by the private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management from 2010 to 2020, according to a report by the Private Equity Stakeholder Project, a nonprofit that supports the California bill. Steward filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in May. “Almost all of the most distressed US healthcare companies are owned by private equity firms,” according to another study by the group.

Opponents of the legislation argue it would dampen much-needed investment in an industry with soaring operating costs. “Our concern is that it will cut off funding that can improve health care,” said Ned Wigglesworth, a spokesperson for Californians to Protect Community Health Care , a coalition of groups fighting the legislation. The prospect of having to submit to a lengthy review by the attorney general, he said, would create “a chilling effect on private funders.”

Children’s Choice Dental Care, for example, said in a letter to state senators that it logs over 227,000 dental visits annually, mostly with children on Medi-Cal, the health insurance program for low-income Californians. “We have been able to expand to 25 locations, because we have been able to access capital from a private equity firm,” the group wrote.

“It’s helpful to look at ownership classes like private equity, but at the end of the day we should look at behavior, and anyone can do the things that private equity firms do,” said Christopher Cai, a physician and health policy researcher at Harvard Medical School. He added, though, that private equity investors are “more likely to engage in financially risky or purely profit-driven behavior.”

We encourage organizations to republish our content, free of charge. Here’s what we ask:

You must credit us as the original publisher, with a hyperlink to our kffhealthnews.org site. If possible, please include the original author(s) and KFF Health News” in the byline. Please preserve the hyperlinks in the story.

It’s important to note, not everything on kffhealthnews.org is available for republishing. If a story is labeled “All Rights Reserved,” we cannot grant permission to republish that item.

Have questions? Let us know at KHNHelp@kff.org

More From KFF Health News

Kids Who Survived Super Bowl Shooting Are Scared, Suffering Panic Attacks and Sleep Problems

Opioid Settlements Promise Mississippi a Windfall. What Happens Next?

Watch: How Patients Get Charged Hospital Prices for Doctor’s Office Care

Listen to the Latest ‘KFF Health News Minute’

Thank you for your interest in supporting Kaiser Health News (KHN), the nation’s leading nonprofit newsroom focused on health and health policy. We distribute our journalism for free and without advertising through media partners of all sizes and in communities large and small. We appreciate all forms of engagement from our readers and listeners, and welcome your support.

KHN is an editorially independent program of KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). You can support KHN by making a contribution to KFF, a non-profit charitable organization that is not associated with Kaiser Permanente.

Click the button below to go to KFF’s donation page which will provide more information and FAQs. Thank you!

Press release

Ey acquires ignite strategic to strengthen real estate transactions advisory services in alberta., ignite strategic, a real estate consultancy, has joined ey to provide clients with strategic advisory and transaction expertise, leveraging ignite strategic’s depth of market insight and industry leading strategy..

EY Canada Specialist, Public Relations

Constantly asking questions, generating new ideas and creating innovative solutions to achieve measurable results. Always caffeinated and on the look out for hole-in-the-wall restaurants in Toronto.

• Link copied

CALGARY | Traditional and ancestral territories of the Treaty 7 region, the Blackfoot First Nation tribes of Siksika, the Piikuni, the Kainai, the Stoney Nakoda First Nations tribes of Chiniki, Bearspaw, and Goodstoney and the Tsuut’ina First Nation – Ignite Strategic, a real estate consultancy, has joined EY to provide clients with strategic advisory and transaction expertise, leveraging Ignite Strategic’s depth of market insight and industry leading strategy. “We’re excited to join forces with Ignite Strategic to further the breadth and depth of EY’s real estate transaction capabilities to help clients in Alberta and beyond successfully prepare for a data-driven future with state-of-the-art platforms at the centre,” shares Zachary Pendley , Real Estate and Hospitality Transactions Leader at EY Canada. Founded by David Ford and Jeremy Tomalin-Reeves , Ignite Strategic has solidified a strong foothold within the Alberta market over the past 16 years, distinguished by a track record of delivering measurable results. Working with residential, mixed-use, resort and public sector real estate clients, Ignite Strategic engages in early-stage strategy and capital facilitation to unlock and enhance asset value that creates optimal development solutions for every unique opportunity. In a notable example of their impact, Ignite Strategic was engaged with a major real estate redevelopment client as a key member of the development envisioning and concept planning team, contributing master planning insights along with product profiling and project positioning expertise in shaping a $5-billion master development program. Additionally, Ignite Strategic was instrumental in driving the land sales strategy and developer partnership initiatives, identifying over 150-residential, commercial and hotel partners from across Canada. This initiative effectively positioned the development with market-relevant solutions, strong strategic development partners and a synergistic real estate program marketed through an innovative destination-marketing centre.

“From the onset, we’ve prided ourselves on blending deep industry insights with innovative thinking, ensuring that every strategy we develop is uniquely crafted to meet our clients' specific needs,” shares Ford. “Joining EY allows us to scale and gain access to additional valuation, infrastructure advisory and capital market channels, as well as  assurance and tax expertise to deliver tailored solutions that enhance value and mitigate risks for clients' real estate investments.”

Together, EY and Ignite Strategic will empower clients to navigate the complexities of property transactions, while delivering market-relevant solutions, aligning strategic objectives with market demands, mitigating risks and enhancing competitiveness in a dynamic marketplace.

"Through the use of advanced technology, we’re enhancing the efficiency and effectiveness of our market research, which translates into considerable advantages for our clients as we delve into the complexities of Alberta's real estate market and extend our reach across Canada," says Tomalin-Reeves.

EY exists to build a better working world, helping create long-term value for clients, people and society and build trust in the capital markets.

Enabled by data and technology, diverse EY teams in over 150 countries provide trust through assurance and help clients grow, transform and operate.

Working across assurance, consulting, law, strategy, tax and transactions, EY teams ask better questions to find new answers for the complex issues facing our world today.

EY refers to the global organization, and may refer to one or more, of the member firms of Ernst & Young Global Limited, each of which is a separate legal entity. Ernst & Young Global Limited, a UK company limited by guarantee, does not provide services to clients. Information about how EY collects and uses personal data and a description of the rights individuals have under data protection legislation are available via ey.com/privacy . EY member firms do not practice law where prohibited by local laws. For more information about our organization, please visit ey.com .  Follow us on X @EYCanada .

Related news

Connect with us

Our locations

Legal and privacy

Accessibility

EY refers to the global organization, and may refer to one or more, of the member firms of Ernst & Young Global Limited, each of which is a separate legal entity. Ernst & Young Global Limited, a UK company limited by guarantee, does not provide services to clients.

EY | Assurance | Consulting | Strategy and Transactions | Tax

EY is a global leader in assurance, consulting, strategy and transactions, and tax services. The insights and quality services we deliver help build trust and confidence in the capital markets and in economies the world over. We develop outstanding leaders who team to deliver on our promises to all of our stakeholders. In so doing, we play a critical role in building a better working world for our people, for our clients and for our communities.

EY refers to the global organization, and may refer to one or more, of the member firms of Ernst & Young Global Limited, each of which is a separate legal entity. Ernst & Young Global Limited, a UK company limited by guarantee, does not provide services to clients. For more information about our organization, please visit ey.com.

© EYGM Limited. All Rights Reserved. 

EYG/OC/FEA no.

This material has been prepared for general informational purposes only and is not intended to be relied upon as accounting, tax, or other professional advice. Please refer to your advisors for specific advice.

Welcome to EY.com

In addition to cookies that are strictly necessary to operate this website, we use the following types of cookies to improve your experience and our services: Functional cookies to enhance your experience (e.g. remember settings), and  Performance cookies to measure the website's performance and improve your experience . , and Marketing/Targeting cookies , which are set by third parties, allow us to execute marketing campaigns, manage our relationship with you, build a profile of your interests and provide you with content or service offerings in accordance with your preferences. 

We have detected that Do Not Track/Global Privacy Control is enabled in your browser; as a result, Marketing/Targeting cookies , which are set by third parties that allow us to execute marketing campaigns, manage our relationship with you, build a profile of your interests and provide you with content or service offerings in accordance with your preferences are automatically disabled.

You may withdraw your consent to cookies at any time once you have entered the website through a link in the privacy policy, which you can find at the bottom of each page on the website.

Review our  cookie policy  for more information.

Customize cookies

I decline optional cookies

Are you looking for a change of job in the Finance Field? Talk to one our professionals

Private Equity Interview Prep - Real Estate

We Give You BOTH Coaching and Top Quality Interview Prep Guides, Slides, Financial Models, and Case Studies for Investment Banking - Our 93% Success Rate Speaks For Itself

Master the latest and most advanced technical questions on accounting, comps, dcfs, m&a, and lbos specific to real estate private equity, gain familiarity with key market trends in subsectors of real estate such as multi-family, single family rentals, office, warehouses, hotels, and data center reits, build real estate models and forecast rent rolls, gross potential income, gross operating income, price per square foot, noi, cap rates, construction & renovation schedules, debt schedules, and irr, craft a compelling personal narrative that aligns with real estate private equity, including highlighting deal walkthroughs, relevant experiences and skills, receive personalized, structured written feedback to identify your strengths and areas for improvement, enhancing your interview performance, 93% of clients receive a job offer in private equity. we are the only service completely dedicated to your success. our philosophy is unique: a successful client is one who gets the job of their dreams, not one who keeps coming back, overview of investment banking interview prep services.

Investment banks seek to hire candidates with strong attention to detail, great communication abilities, and a hard-working, positive attitude. Consequently, investment banking interviews are often very technical, testing you on financial concepts not taught in the classroom, such as accounting questions, enterprise value, multiples, discounted cash flow, mergers and acquisitions, and leveraged buyouts.

During a standard 1-hour call, we can test you from a list of curated advanced technical questions customized to your abilities, and provide detailed feedback on how to improve, as well as explaining advanced financial modeling concepts in our 1-on-1 coaching process. it’s our goal to get you your ideal investment banking role..

US$ 209 / Hour

One Hour Coaching Session

• Any materials we go through will be sent to you (financial models / templates, slide decks, case studies)

US$ 197 / Hour

Bulk Package: 3 Hours (6% off)

• 350 questions interview guide
• 6 slide decks covering Behaviorals, Accounting, EV / Comps, DCF, M&A, and LBO
• 2 hour LBO case study

US$ 184 / Hour

Bulk Package: 5 Hours (13% Off)

• DCF case study in restaurant industry
• DCF case study in software industry
• 2 M&A accretion / dilution case studies using merger model method and earnings yield method
• IB case study with advanced M&A accretion / dilution and paper LBO
• 1 corporate development / FP&A case study

US$ 172 / Hour

Bulk Package: 8 Hours (19% Off)

• Complex LBO case study in software industry with quarterly modeling required and working with ownership waterfall structures like liquidation preference
• 1 long complex LBO case studies in knife sharpening industry with 50-70 slides in CIM with PPT and Excel solutions
• 1 venture capital case study

US$ 159 / Hour

Bulk Package: 10 Hours (25% Off)

• Short LBO case study in restaurant industry
• Short LBO case study in software industry
• 1 long complex LBO case studies in the sporting arena industry with 50-70 slides in CIM with PPT and Excel solutions
• Complex LBO case study in the car washing industry with Excel modeling and Word memo component with solutions
• Real estate paper LBO
• Real estate private equity case study for nursing home company
• Real estate private equity case study for retail property
• 2 corporate development / FP&A case studies

Our Coaching Methodology

Understanding your Goals

Understand your goals, your background, and your experiences so we can align your story, as well as getting a grasp around your technical skills, customized interview questions, customized mock interview catering to the topics you need the most improvement on or wish to focus on, feedback is provided after each question in order to promote learning and memory retention, and written feedback will be provided as well addressing your strengths and areas for improvement, our coaches.

Founder, Partner

(ib, pe, corp dev, resume review, financial modeling, vc, ir), investment banking and private equity professional.

• 8 years of experience
• Principal at Apex Advisory
• Private Equity Analyst at Imperial Capital
• Investment Banking Analyst at BMO, Diversified Group
• Industry experience in headhunting, VC, HF, and ER
• Founded Limestone Capital
• Created 1st finance interview prep course at Queen’s
• Taught course consisting of ~250 slides, six classes, with hundreds of students attending
• Placed 100+ candidates into IB and PE roles

Equity Research Analyst, Technology Group, Large Bank

Equity research, hedge fund, and investment banking professional.

• 2 years of experience as Equity Research Analyst in Technology group at large bank
• 7 years of experience in hedge funds and investment banking
• Experience teaching and lecturing in classroom environment
• Mentored dozens of professionals to help them secure jobs in equity research and hedge funds

Investment Banking Professional

Ib expert with tmt & m&a experience at bb.

• 2+ years of experience covering TMT and M&A at a top Bulge Bracket in New York
• 1+ year of experience at a Growth Equity fund
• Have helped lead Intern and Analyst recruitment; have insights into the interview processes at numerous firms
• Mentored numerous professionals and helped them secure jobs in Investment Banking, Growth Equity, and Private Equity

Investment Banking Coach

Experienced student coach in the ib industry.

• Incoming Investment Banking Analyst at Perella Weinberg
• Current Investment Banking Analyst at Roth Capital Partners
• Experience coaching 25+ students into Bulge Brackets and Elite Boutiques
• Had interviews from 8+ Elite Boutiques
• Advanced industry recruiting knowledge
• Non-core recruiting & core school recruiting

Rolan Naiman

(corporate banking / commercial banking / private debt), corporate banking and private equity professional.

• 4 years of experience
• 2nd year Corporate Banking Associate in BMO’s Power, Utilities & Infrastructure Group (promoted in July 2020)
• Prior to joining the Power, Utilities & Infrastructure Group, spent 2 years in BMO’s Project Finance Group
• Focused on P&U and infrastructure
• Investment management and trading experience at OPSEU Pension Trust as an Analyst in Investment Strategy & Macro Research, Portfolio Construction
• Previously Analyst in Scotiabank’s FIG Group
• Previously an Analyst at RBC

Manager of Strategic Finance and FP&A at FAANG

Fp&a, technology finance, er and hf professional.

• Top-ranked Investment Banking & Equity Research VP with 12+ years of experience. Currently a Strategic Finance and FP&A Manager at one of the FANGs
• Have worked on the buyside & sellside, at bulge brackets & boutiques, covered multiple sectors
• Been on the hiring committee for Intern, Analyst, Associate & VP recruitment
• Mentored 115+ professionals & helped them secure jobs in Banking, Research, S&T, HFs, & Strategic Finance / FP&A over the last 12 years, through resume & cover letter reviews, mock interviews, and career coaching
• Ivy-league graduate with 100% scholarship throughout

Manager of Investor Relations and Corporate Finance

Investor relations, corporate finance, and investment banking professional.

• 5 years of experience as Manager of Investor Relations and Corporate Finance
• 2 years of experience as Investment Banking Analyst
• 8 years of coaching and resume review experience

Our Placements

What our clients are saying:

Josh greatly assisted me in preparing for my Bain, BCG and McKinsey interviews. He helped to curate interviews that developed my weaknesses and helped me to identify my strengths. His cases were through, creative and challenging. Our cases were broadly focused at first but Josh was able to identify the places I needed to improve in order to advance. Josh's feedback was an asset to my improvement in the case interview circuit. He's an intelligent and highly driven finance professional who greatly assisted in achieving my interview goals and I'm confident he can do the same for you.

Management Consulting Professional

Josh has been invaluable in helping me improve my financial modeling skills and sharpen my understanding of material details in private equity transactions. Josh is a great teacher and is able to effectively communicate and pass on his experience and knowledge gained as an investment banker and private equity professional. Josh does not only teach the basics but can readily break down and simplify complex industry concepts. Josh was not only great in teaching the technical aspects of the job but also helped to develop my strategy to succeed in interviews. Overall, I am Josh has been outstanding in helping me transition from a non-traditional background in corporate law to finance.

Investment Banking Associate

Joshua Jia is probably one of the most knowledgeable and hardworking professionals you will ever meet. He has immense industry experience and also significant knowledge of the finance industry in general. I have benefited immensely through Josh’s help throughout the job searching and recruiting process in the finance industry and have landed a number of sought after roles. I hope that you will be able to benefit from this as well. Josh’s help will not only open doors for now, it will also open doors for your future career opportunities. The investment is well worthwhile.

Corporate Finance Professional

Josh is a leader in interview preparation and career development. Josh was instrumental in helping me land a job at a leading global investment bank in NYC. Josh continues to be a source of guidance and mentorship as I progress through my career. I highly recommend working with Josh to secure your next job in the financial industry.

Investment Banking Associate at Global Investment Bank in NYC

Josh greatly assisted me in preparing for my interviews in both investment banking and corporate development. He provided me with practical, actionable advice drawn from his experience interviewing with numerous employers that helped me overcome my weaknesses, highlight my strengths and tailor my message to the employer in question. He was incredibly patient with me as I went through the interview process and was very helpful throughout. If you're looking for someone to transform your interview skills, there is no better person than Josh.

Corporate Development Professional at Multinational Corporation

Josh has been a phenomenal mentor of mine since I was in first-year university. His extensive experience in investment banking and private equity made him the perfect interview prep coach, especially since he has gone through the recruiting process himself. In addition, he has a knack for giving intuitive explanations for financial concepts, ensuring that I fully understood the theory as opposed to simply memorizing the answers to a list of interview questions. His friendly disposition also made him a pleasure to interact with. In the end, I was able to secure an investment analyst position on the buy-side upon graduation. I definitely would not have been able to get there without his help, so many thanks to Josh for helping me jumpstart my career!

Investment Analyst at Leading Investment Management Firm

Josh’s personal advice were essential for me when I was looking for a job. His experiences and expertise in the finance industry allowed him to teach me some of the most practical and useful financial concepts. Moreover, Josh international experiences also helped me to explore different opportunities in regions like China and Hong Kong. Josh was very attentive throughout the whole process. He helped to improve my resume tremendously by cutting out the unnecessary materials and highlighting personal strength. Most importantly, his deep understanding of interviewers’ intentions was what really helped me. By the end of my sessions with Josh, I was not only able to receive job offers, I also gained knowledge about the industry which I believe that will able to benefit me for a lifetime.

Private Equity Associate

Josh was incredibly helpful when it came to prepping for interviews. Whether he was giving me advice technical or behavioural questions, everything he helped me with was instrumental in helping me get a job in investment banking, and then in private equity. If your goal is to break into the industry, there’s no one I would trust more than him!

Alex and Josh are both great mentors and were a crucial component of my career development early on, and the guidance they provided me on financial modeling and LBO modeling gave me a step up in both recruiting and work. They are both extremely competent with regards to teaching financial concepts for individuals both new and familiar with finance, and are always happy to share honest advice. They are both genuinely care about your success and I would recommend them to anyone interested in developing the necessary skills to pursuing a career in finance early on.

Investment Analyst at Highbridge Capital

I just wanted to take the time to thank and give much-deserved credit to Alexander. My resume review could not have gone better. Alexander was thorough and asked all the right questions in order to capture all of my highlights. He took the time to fully understand my story and position it in the best way on my resume. His knowledge of the Finance industry was evident in his suggestions which I would have never thought of. He also took the time to answer any miscellaneous questions I had in detail. The process was outstanding all around. I would definitely work with him again and recommend this service to anyone looking to transform their resume.

Sr. Finance Manager, ABB Optical Group (Florida)

Alex did a great job on my resume review. He was encouraging and offered perspective that increased my confidence with the job search. I was changing industries and was concerned I wouldn’t be able to break into investment banking, but through his encouragement and help I was able to get an investment banking analyst position within a few weeks. I received many compliments on my resume through the job search which played a huge part in me receiving the offer. I would recommend Alex’s service for any student or professional wanting to get into investment banking.

Investment Banking Analyst, Agentis (Vancouver)

Alexander was immensely helpful in getting my resume ready for my recent career search. He was extremely thoughtful, attentive, and helpful throughout our interaction. With his help I have been able to secure interviews with firms that I would not have been able to prior to him helping me refine my resume.

Analyst (Originations), White Oak Global Advisors (San Francisco)

My experience with Alexander has been more than pleasant. Alex was prompt, courteous and professional. He took the time to talk to me to truly understand my work experience and my skills. He reformatted my resume, condensed it down to 1 page while preserving the essence. He also helped me with my interview skills, potential areas I could improve on. I have received several interviews from high caliber organizations, and I attribute it all to Alexander's help.

Analyst (Data Performance & Risk), Alberta Teachers’ Retirement Fund Board (Edmonton)

It was 8 months before graduation that I decided to pursue a career in finance. Having worked in completely irrelevant fields, I was lost and I didn't have any guidance or exposure to the whole finance scene and struggled in figuring out how to break into finance. I knew speaking with people like Alexander who knew ins and outs of recruiting process was one of the things I could do, so I actively sought mentorship opportunities, and I stumbled upon a chance to speak with Alexander. After speaking with him and doing a mock interview, I learned exactly what I lacked in, and what strengths I have, and what direction I should take on to maximize my chances of breaking into the industry. Alexander has been tremendously helpful with my recruiting, and offered invaluable advice that played a critical role in landing interviews with reputable firms for investment banking, equity research and private equity roles. What I really appreciated was that he was very real and gave advice that were actionable in the very limited timeframe I was given. Alexander is currently mentoring me and I truly feel that having a mentorship opportunity with Alexander will help anyone aspiring to be in finance to set out a clear plan that he or she can execute on.

Private Equity Analyst, Red Oak Succession Partners (Toronto)

I had the pleasure of working with Alexander when he conducted a resume review session with me prior to the beginning of the recruiting season. One of the things that stood out to me about the session was how thorough Alexander was with his feedback. My resume was not riddled with too many errors, but Alexander provided constructive feedback for almost every line of my resume. Not only was he able to give feedback on the resume itself but also he provided his thoughts about how he felt my resume was as it relates to the roles that I intended to apply for. I'm currently in the process of recruiting and now feel more confident about my resume and have begun to receive interview opportunities for the roles that I intended to apply for.

Student, Baruch College

Alex recently helped me with my resume. The process began with a bunch of pertinent questions which formed a starting point for the review and then continued with revisions based on subsequent questions I had following the first draft. The resume looks significantly better than what I had before this process. I also learned that I was leaving off things that were perfectly good to be on the resume and stay there. Additionally, Alex was kind enough to take the time to answer some other questions I had, given his experience in the field. Overall, the process was seamless and informative and I highly recommend it if you are at all uncertain about your resume.

Senior Financial Analyst, Avenue M Advisors (Los Angeles)

Alex has the ability to hone in on specific aspects of your resume and make them shine. After a phone call and a couple pass-throughs with him, the difference in my resume is night and day. Always friendly and receptive, Alex has managed to make me impressed with my own resume. I’m heading into recruiting season more confident than ever and looking forward to staying in touch with Alex.

Marketing Manager, Xiaomi (Beijing)

Alexander provided superior service in helping me revise and critique my resume. Throughout the resume review process Alexander provided thorough and concise feedback to ensure my resume was of the highest quality to present to employers. Overall, the resume review service offered by Alexander was very professional and highly recommended!

Loan Associate, State Street (Boston)

From the moment Alexander Banh and I connected he was very professional and quick to respond to me. He offered to review my resume and give it a professional update so that I would attract more potential employers to my profile. He did a superb job with sending me a thorough questionnaire to learn more about me and my previous work experience which thus led to him generating a very polished resume for me. The process took less than a week and I was very pleased with his work. After he was done working on my resume I immediately starting filling out applications for finance positions that I was interested in. I received many call backs and in person interviews, which led me to receiving a full time job in corporate finance for a company that I love working for. I know that I wouldn’t be where I am today without his help. Thank you again Alexander, and I look forward to working with you in the future.

Wealth Mgmt. Branch Analyst, Morgan Stanley (Atlanta)

Schedule Your Call Now!

Call structure:, after understanding your goals and background, provide you with sample mock interview questions to ascertain where you are at in your preparation, customized mock interview catering to the topics you need the most improvement on or wish to focus on, feedback is provided after each question in order to promote learning and memory retention, concise, written feedback will be provided afterwards addressing your strengths and areas for improvement.

• You are on Realigro website
• Russian Federation

Chelyabinsk Oblast

• List your properties
• Estate agents
• Private seller
• Property portals

Preferences

• Publish your free listing
• Rent-holidays

Listings houses for sale, Chelyabinsk Oblast

Listings for sale.

• Save search
• Submit a generic request
• Custom search

Real Estate Listings

For sale farmland, russian federation, chelyabinsk oblast, chelyabinsk, the same as locality.

For sale Farmland, Russian Federation, Chelyabinsk Oblast, Chelyabinsk, Uvelskiy rayon

Refine your search, search by area.

• Chelyabinsk (2)

Search by category

• Farmland (2)

For a better use of Realigro website, set your preferences for language, currency, square meters or sq ft.

USD 61.5333 Rub. ↓-0.04 EUR 68.5358 Rub. ↓-0.12 CNY 8.97105 Rub. ↑+0.03 city, Analysis of Russian real estate market:   ,   ,   ,   RUB: USD: /m² EUR: /m² USD: /ft² GBP: /ft² CHF: /m² CNY: /m² JPY: /m² Change of cost per square foot in per week (USD): Change of average apartment cost in rubles per week, 12.4 thousand apartments $477.83 million 717.6 thousand m² 7.72 million ft² flats/apartments in secondary housing market 1 bedroom apartments 30.6% 3.8 thousand $88.75 million 135.7 thousand m² 1.46 million ft² 2 bedroom apartments 36.1% 4.5 thousand $154.63 million 238.0 thousand m² 2.56 million ft² 3 bedroom apartments 26.6% 3.3 thousand $170.29 million 254.2 thousand m² 2.74 million ft² multi-bedroom apartments 6.6% 817 $64.17 million 89.7 thousand m² 965.6 thousand ft² average apartment cost per square foot/meter 1 bedroom apartments 2 bedroom apartments 3 bedroom apartments multi-bedroom apartments flats/apartments cost on 06.01.2020 1 bedroom flat 35.9 m² 386.3 ft² 2 bedroom flat 53.3 m² 574.0 ft² 3 bedroom flat 77.2 m² 831.1 ft² 4+ bedroom flat 109.8 m² 1181.9 ft² | | | and date of original publication. Liability limitation: the owner and administration of website RLT24.com are not responsible for the interpretation and consequences of using the materials from this website. Leveraged Breakdowns Leveraged Breakdowns Presents: The real estate private equity technical interview guide. Are you prepared to face an onslaught of nuanced technical questions common throughout the entire real estate private equity process? Do you have an edge over your competition when interviewers test your ability to: Demonstrate fluency with each major sector and their core strengths and weaknesses Thoroughly explain the relationship between cap rates and risk Quickly compare and contrast two investment opportunities regardless of sector or geography Manipulate accounting and financial metrics common in real estate private equity Convincingly highlight the merits of investing in real estate Analyze and recommend the appropriate credit strategy for any particular deal Intelligibly discuss the intricacies of development underwriting And do it all within thirty seconds or less ? The Leveraged Breakdowns Technical Interview Guide teaches you all of this as efficiently as possible. We tell it all, speaking from deep experience having: Closed over $15B in acquisitions (both public M&A and asset-level) Successfully recruited into the largest Manhattan REPE megafunds and mentored others to do the same Taught hundreds of students, who constantly update us with the latest questions from each annual interview cycle at every major firm When it comes to real estate private equity technical interview prep, the Leveraged Breakdowns guide has no comparison . Comprising 41 pages and 56 in-depth questions, we prepare you for exactly what you will be asked in any given interview , absolutely guaranteed. Please share your email and message below and a member of our team will be in touch. Theory and Practice of Assessing the Efficiency of Urban Agglomeration Administration Abroad and in Russia (a Case Study of Chelyabinsk Oblast) URBAN STUDIES Published: 27 November 2023 Volume 13 , pages 725–738, ( 2023 ) Cite this article E. Markwart 1 , D. P. Sosnin 2 & S. V. Nechaeva 3   49 Accesses Explore all metrics The efficiency of urban agglomeration administration has so far not been an object of close attention for researchers. The article proposes to evaluate it with respect to the contractual administration model based on three components, i.e., evaluate the overall efficiency of administering the development of the agglomeration as the degree of achievement of the goals of agglomeration interaction, the political efficiency of making and implementing decisions, and the managerial efficiency of implementing agglomeration projects. The approach is theoretically substantied, and the results of a study of the efficiency of agglomeration administration are presented with a case study of the agglomerations of Chelyabinsk oblast. Summarizing the results of the study based on the above three components, the authors conclude the following. First, in a broad sense, the goal of development of an agglomeration (and its administration) is to strengthen the competitiveness of the agglomeration in global, national, or at least large interregional markets and to increase its contribution to development of the economy and society. Second, efficiency (making and implementing decisions) under conditions of the contractual model of agglomeration administration implies a key role of the coordinating body, which consists in finding and achieving a balance of interests of the participants, preparing and agreeing on draft decisions, and monitoring and controlling their implementation. In fact, the efficiency of agglomeration administration is closely related to the efficiency of the coordinating body. Third, the efficiency (more precisely, success) of agglomeration administration by assessing the implementation of agglomeration projects, in turn, depends on the chosen mechanisms and forms for carrying out such projects. Analysis of the Russian practice of urban agglomeration administration, with a case study of Chelyabinsk oblast (the Chelyabinsk agglomeration and Gorny Ural agglomeration), made it possible to test these theoretical conclusions. This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access. Access this article Subscribe and save. Get 10 units per month Download Article/Chapter or eBook 1 Unit = 1 Article or 1 Chapter Cancel anytime Price includes VAT (Russian Federation) Instant access to the full article PDF. Rent this article via DeepDyve Institutional subscriptions Similar content being viewed by others The Relationship Between the European Commission and Local Government Through European Urban Initiatives: Constraints and Solidarities The Development of Polycentric Agglomeration and the Non-agglomeration Territory in the Economic Space of a Region European Urban Agenda: The Predicaments of Decentralised Coordinative Action See also: The impacts of metropolitan regions on their surrounding areas. Commission for Territorial Cohesion Policy and EU Budget, 2019. https://cor.europa.eu/en/engage/studies/Documents/Metropolitan-regions.pdf . See: The Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI) project. http://info.worldbank.org/governance/wgi/#home ; 12 Principles of Good Governance. https://www.coe.int/en/web/good-governance/12-principles . For this approach, it is more correct to speak about the effectiveness (or success) of agglomeration administration, not about efficiency in the exact sense of the word. See below for more details. See: Satzung des Region Koln/Bonn e.V. vom 05. September 2018, § 2. https://www.region-koeln-bonn.de/uploads/media/180905_RegionKoelnBonn_Satzung.pdf (translated from the german by E. Markwart). See: Gesetz uber die Metropolregion Frankfurt/Rhein-Main (MetropolG) vom 8. März 2011, § 1. https://www.rv.hessenrecht.hessen.de/bshe/document/jlr-MetrRegFrankfGHEframe . See: Gesetz uber den Regionalverband Ruhr (RVRG) vom 3. Februar 2004. https://recht.nrw.de/lmi/owa/br_bes_text?sg=0&menu=1&bes_id=5244&aufgehoben=N&anw_nr=2 (translation from German and compilation by E. Markwart). Assuming that such goals would generally be set by individual participants in the absence of agglomeration interaction. An example of the rationale for the choice of indicators, sources of their receipt and approach to calculation can be found in the study of the Initiative Group “European Metropolises in Germany” within the “Models of Spatial Organization” project (2007), initiated by the corresponding federal ministry ( https://www.region-stuttgart.org/mdex.php?eID=dumpFile&t=f&f=815&token=f9ecf555ad6bfd5824bee799ac099514996da931 , p. 10). See: Bundesamt fur Bauwesen und Raumordnung. https://www.bbsr.bund.de/BBSR/DE/startseite/_node.html . See: Assessing the development of urban agglomerations. https://www.urbaneconomics.ru/sites/default/files/07.12_ocenka_ razvitosti_gorodskih_aglomeraciy.pdf . See: Interkommunale Zusammenarbeit Studie der Kienbaum Management Consultants GmbH in Kooperation mit dem Deutschen Stadte- und Gemeindebund. Dusseldorf, Juni 2004. https://docplayer.org/191835644-Interkommunale-cooperation-study-of-kienbaum-management-consultants-gmbh-in-cooperation-with-the-german-towns-and-community-day.html. See: Richtlinie fur Zuwendungen des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalen zur Forderung der interkommunalen Zusammenarbeit. Runderlass des Ministeriums fur Heimat, Kommunales, Bau und Gleichstellung des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalen - 301 - 43.02.05/04 vom 31. August 2021. https://recht.nrw.de/lmi/owa/br_bes_text?anw_nr=1&gld_nr=2&ugl_nr=202&bes_id=46868&val=46868&ver=7&sg=0&aufgehoben=N&menu=1 . See: GOST R 54870-2011: Project Management. Requirements for Project Portfolio Management . http://docs.cntd.ru/document/1200089605 ; GOST R 54869-2011: Project Management. Project Management Requirements . http://gostrf.eom/normadata/1/4293797/4293797785.pdf ; GOST R 54871-2011: Project Management. Program Management Requirements . http://gostrf.eom/normadata/1/4293797/4293797787.pdf ; GOST R ISO 21500-2014: Project Management Guide . http://meganorm.ru/Data2/1/4293765/4293765998.pdf . Agreement on the creation of the Gorny Ural agglomeration. https://view.officeapps.live.com/op/view.aspx?src=http://www.karsob.ru/upload/iblock/22a/%D0%A1%D0%BE%D0%B3%D0%BB%D0%B0%D1%88%D0%B5%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%B5%20%D0%93%D0%BE%D1%80%D0%BD%D1%8B%D0%B9%20%D0%A3%D1%80%D0%B0%D0%BB.doc&wdOrigin=BROWSELINK . Agreement on the creation of the Gorny Ural agglomeration. https://view.officeapps.live.com/op/view.aspx?src=http%3A%2F% 2Fwww.karsob.ru%2Fupload%2Fiblock%2F22a%2F%25D0% 25A1%25D0%25BE%25D0%25B3%25D0%25BB%25D0%25B0%25D1%2588%25D0%25B5%25D0%25BD%25D0%25B8%25D0%25B5%2520%25D0%2593%25D0%25BE%25D1%2580%25D0%25BD%25D1%258B%25D0%25B9%2520%25D0%25A3%25D1%2580%25D0%25B0%25D0%25BB.doc&wdOrigin=BROWSELINK . See: Strategy of Socioeconomic Development of Chelyabinsk oblast for the Period up to 2035. https://docs.cntd.ru/document/553133071?ysclid=I57x7p80lq421416409 . Decree of the Government of Chelyabinsk oblast no. 387-P of August 3, 2020, On Approval of the Territorial Planning Scheme for a Part of the Territory of Chelyabinsk oblast (Zlatoust, Mias, Karabash, and Chebarkul Urban Okrugs, Kusinsky and Satkinsky Municipal Districts (the Territory of the Gorny Ural Agglomeration). https://docs.cntd.ru/document/570871608 . Decision of the Chelyabinsk City Duma no. 52/6 of June 24, 2014, On Approval of the Agreement on the Creation of the Chelyabinsk Agglomeration. http://www.kapo-gorbunov.ru/index.php?docid=234882 . It should be noted that the boundaries of the Chelyabinsk agglomeration in the territorial planning scheme do not coincide with the boundaries of the agglomeration in the current Strategy for the Socioeconomic Development of Chelyabinsk oblast (in the regional strategy, they are much wider and include the territories of the Argayashsky and Kunashaksky municipal districts). This allows us to claim “mobility” of ideas about the boundaries of the agglomeration, depending on the considered control loop: intermunicipal cooperation, regional management in the field of urban planning or regional management in the field of long-term socioeconomic development. Created Coordinating Council of Municipalities of the Chelyabinsk Agglomeration, August 31, 2015. http://www.deputat74.ru/content/sozdan-koordinatsionnyi-sovet-munitsipalnykh-obrazovanii-chelyabinskoi-aglomeratsii . Based on the report “Project ‘Modern City: The First Youth University for the Development of Agglomerations’” at the IV Forum of Best Municipal Practices of the Union of Russian Cities in Ufa (June 16–18, 2016). For more detail on the so-called redistribution of authority between municipalities and the federal subject and consequences thereof, see (Markwart, 2016). Service for verification and analysis of Russian legal entities and entrepreneurs. https://www.rusprofile.ru/id/10161284 . Abramov, R.A., Mukhaev, R.T., and Sokolov, M.S., Criteria for the effectiveness of state and regional management in the context of the project approach, Teor. Prikl. Ekon ., 2017, no. 1, pp. 96–112. Akhremenko, A.S. and Yureskul, E.A., Efficiency of public administration: Political and economic approaches, Obshchestv. Nauki Sovrem., 2013, no. 1, pp. 77–88. Albert, S. and Theobald, D., Evolution von Governance-Strukturen der Europaischen Metropolregionen in Deutschland, Dissertation, TU Dortmund, 2012. https://eldorado.tu-dortmund.de/bitstream/2003/29890/1/Dissertation.pdf. Cited August 2, 2022. Antonov, E.V., Territorial concentration of the economy and population in European Union countries and Russia and the role of global cities, Reg. Res. Russ. , 2020, vol. 10, no. 3, pp. 360–372. Article   Google Scholar   Antonov, E.V., Kulikov, D.A., and Savoskul, M.S., Urban agglomerations: Approaches to the definition and delimitation of boundaries, in Doklad o sostoyanii mestnogo samoupravleniya v Rossiiskoi Federatsii: Mezhmunitsipal’noe sotrudnichestvo kak mekhanizm upravleniya gorodskimi aglomeratsiyami (Report on the State of Local Government in the Russian Federation: Inter-Municipal Cooperation as a Mechanism for Managing Urban Agglomerations), Ivanova, K.A. and Markwart, E., Eds., Moscow: Prospekt, 2021, pp. 44–69. Google Scholar   Bratchenko, S.A., Kachestvo gosudarstvennogo upravleniya: teoreticheskii, metodologicheskii i institutsional’nyi aspekty: Doklad (Quality of Public Administration: Theoretical, Methodological and Institutional Aspects: Report), Moscow: Inst. Ekon. Ross. Akad. Nauk, 2021. Danielzyk, R. and Blotevogel, H.H., Leistungen und Funktionen von Metropolregionen, in Metropolregionen und Raumentwicklung (Metropolitan Regions and Spatial Development), Part 3: Metropolregionen. Innovation, Wettbewerb, Handlungsfahigkeit (Metropolitan Regions: Innovation, Competition, Ability to Act), Knie-ling, J., Ed., Hannover: ARL, 2009, pp. 22–29. Giuliano, G., Kang, S., and Yuan, Q., Agglomeration economies and evolving urban form, Ann. Reg. Sci ., 2019, no. 63, pp. 377–398. Glazychev, V.L., Starodubrovskaya, I.V., Slavgorodskaya, M.Yu., Khrustalev, A.A., and Turuntsev, E.V., Chelyabinskaya aglomeratsiya: potentsial razvitiya (Chelyabinsk Agglomeration: Development Potential), Chelyabinsk, 2008. Gritsenko, E.V., Theoretical and legal foundations of the organization of public authority in urban agglomerations (comparative legal analysis), in Mestnoe samoupravlenie i razvitie territorii: rossiiskii i evropeiskii opyt (Local Self-Government and Development of Territories: Russian and European Experience), Perm: Perm. Nats. Issled. Politekh. Univ., 2014, pp. 387–412. Kaminskii, V.S, Effectiveness of public administration: An analysis of the main methods, Soc. Security Insights , 2019, vol. 2, no. 4, pp. 13–33. Kiseleva, N.N., Kiselev, V.V., and Snopova, K.V., Agglomeration effect: Myth or reality?, in Doklad o sostoyanii mestnogo samoupravleniya v Rossiiskoi Federatsii: Mezhmunitsipal’noe sotrudnichestvo kak mekhanizm upravleniya gorodskimi aglomeratsiyami (Report on the State of Local Government in the Russian Federation: Inter-Municipal Cooperation as a Mechanism for Managing Urban Agglomerations), Ivanova, K.A. and Markvart, E., Eds., Moscow: Prospekt, 2021, pp. 93–115. Knieling, J. and Blatter, J.K., Metropolitan Governance: Institutionelle Strategien, Dilemmas und Variationsmoglichkeiten fur die Steuerung von Metropolregionen, in Metropolregionen und Raumentwicklung (Metropolitan Regions and Spatial Development), Part 3: Metropolregionen. Innovation, Wettbewerb, Handlungsfahigkeit (Metropolitan Regions: Innovation, Competition, Ability to Act), Knieling, J., Ed., Hannover: Verlag der ARL, 2009, pp. 223–269. Knorr, A., Okonomisierung der offentlichen Verwaltungeinige grundsatzliche ordnungstheoretische Anmerkungen, Bremen: IWIM, 2005. https://dopus.uni-speyer.de/frontdoor/deliver/index/docId/3387/file/%c3%96konomisierung.pdf. Cited August 2, 2022. Kuznetsov, Yu.G., Management of urban agglomerations: methodological approaches, organizational and legal forms and practice, in Sovremennyi gorod: vlast’, upravlenie, ekonomika (Modern City: Power, Management, Economics), Perm: Perm: Perm. Nats. Issled. Politekh. Univ., 2018. https://www.urc.ru/node/122. Cited August 2, 2022. Lappo, G.M., Razvitie gorodskikh aglomeratsii v SSSR (Development of Urban Agglomerations in the USSR), Moscow: Nauka, 1978. Lappo, G., Urban agglomerations of the USSR–Russia: Features of dynamics in the 20th century, Ross. Ekspert. Obozr. , 2007, nos. 4–5, pp. 6–9. Lappo, G.M. and Lyubovnyi, V.Ya., Largest urban agglomerations in Russia at the beginning of the 21st century: Status, problems, and approaches to solving them, Reg. Res. Russ ., 2011, vol. 1, no. 2, pp. 133–140. Lappo, G., Polyan, P., and Selivanova, T., Agglomerations of Russia in the 21st century. http://www.frrio.ru/uploads_files/Lappo.pdf. Cited August 2, 2022. Leksin, V.N., Effectiveness and efficiency of the activities of regional and municipal governments: purpose and possibility of a correct assessment, Reg. Res. Russ ., 2013, vol. 3, no. 3, pp. 277–290. Leksin, V.N., Administrative reform and assessment of the quality of public administration, Tr. Inst. Sist. Anal. Ross. Akad. Nauk , 2006, vol. 22, pp. 113–132. Leksin, V.N., Effectiveness and efficiency of actions of regional and municipal authorities: The purpose and possibilities of a correct assessment, Reg.: Ekon. Sotsiol ., 2012, vol. 73, no. 1, pp. 3–39. Loibl, W., Etminan, Gh., Gebetsroither-Geringer, E., Neumann, H.-M., and Sanchez-Guzman, S., Characteristics of urban agglomerations in different continents: History, patterns, dynamics, drivers and trends in Urban Agglomeration , Ergen, M., Ed., London: InTech,, 2018. https://www.intechopen.com/chapters/59481. Cited August 2, 2022. Markwart, E., Competence of local self-government—A mutation in the course of another municipal reform, Probl. Teor. Prakt. Upr ., 2016, no. 5, pp. 77–88. Markwart, E., Organizational and legal aspects of the contractual model of urban agglomeration management, in Doklad o sostoyanii mestnogo samoupravleniya v Rossiiskoi Federatsii: Mezhmunitsipal’noe sotrudnichestvo kak mekhanizm upravleniya gorodskimi aglomeratsiyami (Report on the State of Local Government in the Russian Federation: Inter-Municipal Cooperation as a Mechanism for Managing Urban Agglomerations), Ivanova, K.A. and Markvart, E., Eds., Moscow: Prospekt, 2021. Markwart, E. and Petukhov, R.V., Organizational and legal models of agglomeration management, Menedzh. Biz.-Adm. , 2016, no. 3, pp. 12–27. Markwart, E. and Shvetsov, A.N., Territorial’naya organizatsiya mestnogo samoupravleniya i upravlenie gorodskimi aglomeratsiyami (Territorial Organization of Local Self-Government and Management of Urban Agglomerations), Moscow: Delo, 2017. Markwart, E., Agapova, E.V., and Voblenko, S.V., Upravlenie khozyaistvennoi deyatel’nost’yu munitsipal’nykh obrazovanii: Uchebnoe posobie (Management of Economic Activities Of Municipalities: Textbook), Moscow: Prospekt, 2015. Mukhaev, R.T. and Abramova, O.G., Criteria for the effectiveness of modern systems of public administration: The problem of quantification of the quality of public administration, Fundam. Issled ., 2016, no. 7-1, pp. 146–154. Pavlov, Yu.V. and Khmeleva, G.A., Properties of urban agglomeration management models, Upravlenie , 2021, vol. 9, no. 2, pp. 57–75. Pavlov, Yu.V., Koroleva, E.N., and Evdokimov, N.N., Theoretical foundations of the formation of the urban agglomeration management system, Ekon. Reg ., 2019, vol. 15, pp. 3, pp. 834–850. Popov, R.A. and Puzanov, A.S., Urban agglomerations: Methods of delimitation and management, in Doklad o sostoyanii mestnogo samoupravleniya v Rossiiskoi Federatsii: Mezhmunitsipal’noe sotrudnichestvo kak mekhanizm upravleniya gorodskimi aglomeratsiyami (Report on the State of Local Government in the Russian Federation: Inter-Municipal Cooperation as a Mechanism for Managing Urban Agglomerations), Ivanova, K.A. and Markwart, E., Eds., Moscow: Prospekt, 2021, pp. 70–92. Puzanov, A.S. and Popov, R.A., Analiz dokumentov strategicheskogo planirovaniya i programmnykh dokumentov regional’nogo i mezhmunitsipal’nogo urovnei na predmet otrazheniya v nikh voprosov razvitiya gorodskikh aglomeratsii (Analysis of Strategic Planning Documents and Program Documents of the Regional and Inter-Municipal Levels in Terms of Reflection of the Development of Urban Agglomerations in Them), Moscow: Fond Inst. Ekon. Goroda, 2018. https://www.urbaneconomics.ru/sites/default/files/aglacts2018.pdf. Cited August 2, 2022. Raisikh, A., On the issue of determining the boundaries of urban agglomerations: World experience and formulation of the problem, Demogr. Obozr. , 2020, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 27–53. Schulze, K. and Blotevogel, H.H., Zum Problem der Quantifizierung der Metropolfunktionen deutscher Metropolregionen, in Metropolregionen und Raumentwicklung (Metropolitan Regions and Spatial Development), Part 3: Metropolregionen. Innovation, Wettbewerb, Handlungsfahigkeit (Metropolitan Regions: Innovation, Competition, Ability to Act), Knieling, J., Ed., Hannover: ARL, 2009, pp. 30–58. Sestrukhina, A.O., Evaluation of the effectiveness of local development management: Terminological and methodological aspects, Munits. Ekon ., 2011, no. 3, pp. 14–19. Shvetsov, A.N., Municipal-state management of urban agglomerations, Munits. Imushchestvo: Ekon., Pravo, Upr ., 2018, no. 2, pp. 17–21. Shvetsov, A.N., Urban agglomerations in the transformation of urban space, Ross. Ekon. Zh. , 2018, no. 1, pp. 45–65. Shvetsov, A.N., Structural transformations of the municipal space: Substantiation of expediency and evaluation of efficiency, Reg. Res. Russ. , 2019, vol. 9, no. 4, pp. 304–310. Shvetsov, A.N., Stanovlenie novoi organizatsii ekonomicheskogo prostranstva Rossii: Opyt gosudarstvennogo regulirovaniya i nauchnykh issledovanii prostranstvennykh preobrazovanii (Formation of a New Organization of the Economic Space of Russia: Experience of State Regulation and Scientific Research of Spatial Transformations), Moscow: LENAND, 2021. Tsipes, G.L., Methods for evaluating the effectiveness of project-oriented activities: A review of the current state and development prospects, Upr. Proektami Program ., 2009, vol. 19, no. 3, pp. 190–215. Vasil’eva, V.M., Kolesneva, E.A., Inshakov, I.A., Gosudarstvennaya politika i upravlenie: Uchebnik i praktikum (Public Policy and Management: Textbook and Tutorial), Moscow: Yurait, 2017. Wollmann, H., Reformen in Kommunalpolitik und -verwaltung: England, Schweden, Frankreich und Deutschland im Vergleich (Reforms in Local Politics and Administration: Comparison of England, Sweden, France, and Germany), Wiesbaden: Wustenrot Stiftung, 2008. Download references Author information Authors and affiliations. Volkshochschule Moers–Kamp-Lintfort, Moers, Germany E. Markwart Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, 119571, Moscow, Russia D. P. Sosnin Chelyabinsk Branch, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, 454077, Chelyabinsk, Russia S. V. Nechaeva You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar Corresponding authors Correspondence to E. Markwart , D. P. Sosnin or S. V. Nechaeva . Ethics declarations The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest. Rights and permissions Reprints and permissions About this article Markwart, E., Sosnin, D.P. & Nechaeva, S.V. Theory and Practice of Assessing the Efficiency of Urban Agglomeration Administration Abroad and in Russia (a Case Study of Chelyabinsk Oblast). Reg. Res. Russ. 13 , 725–738 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1134/S2079970523701083 Download citation Received : 03 August 2022 Revised : 19 September 2022 Accepted : 06 July 2023 Published : 27 November 2023 Issue Date : December 2023 DOI : https://doi.org/10.1134/S2079970523701083 Share this article Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content: Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article. Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative administration of agglomerations, urban agglomerations, administration efficiency agglomeration interaction, development of agglomerations Find a journal Publish with us Track your research 339 IMAGES The Private Equity Case Study: The Ultimate Guide The Private Equity Case Study: The Ultimate Guide Private Equity Case Study: Full Tutorial & Detailed Example Complete Private Equity Case Study Example private equity case study interview example Private Equity Case Study: Full Tutorial & Detailed Example COMMENTS Top 20 Real Estate Private Equity Interview Questions & Answers Master your responses to Real Estate Private Equity related interview questions with our example questions and answers. Boost your chances of landing the job by learning how to effectively communicate your Real Estate Private Equity capabilities. Real Estate Private Equity (REPE) Real Estate Private Equity (REPE) refers to firms that raise capital to acquire, develop, operate, improve, and sell buildings in order to generate returns for their investors. If you're familiar with traditional private equity, real estate private equity is the same, but with buildings. Real Estate Private Equity: Overview, Careers, Salaries & Interviews Real Estate Private Equity: Industry Overview, Career Paths, How to Get In, Salaries, Bonuses, Interview Questions and Answers, and More. Real Estate Modeling Test Examples This is a variation of a timed technical interview test previously given by a global real estate private equity firm as part of its hiring process. Participants are given 60 minutes to complete this test. Private Equity Interviews Private Equity Interviews: How to Prepare, What They'll Ask About, How to Pass Modeling Tests, and How to Land Private Equity Offers. Private Equity Case Study: Full Tutorial & Detailed Example Private Equity Case Study: Full Written Tutorial, Video, Excel File, Example Case Presentation, and Overview of the Entire Process in Interviews. Private Equity Interview Questions and Answers 40 common private equity interview questions. Examples include technical, transactional, behavioral, and logical tests with sample answers. Watch Me Solve a REPE Technical Interview Modeling Test If you're preparing for a real estate technical interview, watch me complete an actual real estate private equity, Excel-based modeling test. Questions to ask During a Real Estate Private Equity Interview Interviews are more than real estate private equity case studies and technical questions. The firm wants to know you're genuinely interested in their unique culture. Private Equity Case Study: Example, Prompts, & Presentation Table of Contents Private equity case studies are an important part of the private equity recruiting process because they allow firms to evaluate a candidate's analytical, investing, and presentation abilities. Private Equity Case Interview: Step-By-Step Guide (2024) Learn to solve private equity case interviews step-by-step, including private equity case interview frameworks, examples, and strategies. Real Estate Private Equity Case Hey Coen, I have some experience with case studies for real estate and thought I'd pipe in. You probably wont see a waterfall question unless it is a pretty institutional shop. How to prepare for the case study in a private equity interview The case study interview is the hardest part of the private equity application process. This is how you need to prepare. REPE Interview Prep: Pro Forma Interview Questions, Part One Understanding real estate pro formas is critical for any real estate private equity interview case study. The revenue and expense items for each major asset class should be in your muscle memory. Even if you haven't made it to an repe case study round, the questions below will likely arise in your screener interviews. Make […] Real Estate Private Equity Course, REPE Career Leveraged Breakdowns provides high quality professional real estate career resources to support your career every step of the way. Private Equity Interview Prep We Give You BOTH Coaching and Both Simple and Complex Case Studies (with Solutions) Interview Prep Guides, Slides, and Financial Models for Private Equity - Our 93% Success Rate Speaks For Itself. Private equity firms seek to hire the cream of the crop from the investment banking and management consultant industry, but with dry powder at an all ... Building Success in Corporate Real Estate: A Q&A with Chelsea ... The goal right now is to build Ascension Advisory into the leading sale leaseback and corporate real estate advisory firm to business owners and private equity firms globally. It Was a Hot Real Estate Trade. Now Investors Are Worried Drawn by the opportunity to invest with private equity firms, small investors rushed into real estate investment trusts. But the funds have lost some appeal as interest rates have climbed. California Bill Would Require State Review of Private Equity Deals in Critics note that private equity deals are often financed with debt that is then owed by the acquired company. In many cases, private equity groups sell off real estate to generate immediate returns for investors and the new owners of the property then charge the acquired company rent. What are Real Estate Private Equity Interviews Like? Preparing for your Real Estate Private Equity Case Study. If you need to prepare for an REPE case study, Leveraged Breakdowns provides an exceptional course, Breaking Down Real Estate Private Equity, that shares our team's insights from interviews with more than ten of the top funds in the business and synthesizes years of buy-side real ... EY acquires Ignite Strategic to strengthen real estate transactions Ignite Strategic, a real estate consultancy, has joined EY to provide clients with strategic advisory and transaction expertise, leveraging Ignite Strategic's depth of market insight and industry leading strategy. Private Equity Interview Prep We Give You BOTH Coaching and Top Quality Interview Prep Guides, Slides, Financial Models, and Case Studies for Investment Banking - Our 93% Success Rate Speaks For Itself Master the latest and most advanced technical questions on accounting, comps, DCFs, M&A, and LBOs specific to real estate private equity Gain familiarity with key market trends in subsectors of real estate such as multi ... Farmland Chelyabinsk Oblast For sale. Real estate sale ads Cod. 15688 For sale Farmland, Russian Federation, Chelyabinsk Oblast, Chelyabinsk, The same as locality Real estate in Chelyabinsk, Russia 60 $/ft². multi-bedroom apartments. 41 627 Rub/m². 672 $/m². 62 $/ft². * calculated weighted averages values of apartment prices per 1 square foot (sq. meter) for different numbers of rooms in Chelyabinsk secondary housing market. 1 foot = 0.3048 meter; 1 meter ≈ 3.2808399 feet. Chelyabinsk flats/apartments cost on 06.01.2020*. bedroom ... Theory and Practice of Assessing the Efficiency of Urban ... The approach is theoretically substantied, and the results of a study of the efficiency of agglomeration administration are presented with a case study of the agglomerations of Chelyabinsk oblast. Summarizing the results of the study based on the above three components, the authors conclude the following. Technical Guide The Real Estate Private Equity TECHNICAL INTERVIEW GUIDE Are you prepared to face an onslaught of nuanced technical questions common throughout the entire real estate private equity process? Do you have an edge over your competition when interviewers test your ability to: Demonstrate fluency with each major sector and their core strengths and weaknesses Thoroughly explain the relationship ... PDF RegRes2370108Markvart.fm The approach is theoretically substantied, and the results of a study of the efficiency of agglomeration administration are presented with a case study of the agglomerations of Chelyabinsk oblast. Summarizing the results of the study based on the above three components, the authors conclude the following. Kamala Harris Has Three Great Weeks Down, 12 to Go Kamala Harris has enjoyed three of the best weeks in recent political memory, and Donald Trump has had three of the worst. Polls find that Democrats are about as likely to vote as Republicans are ... assignment essay homework paper phd resume speech thesis