Breadth of testing for Capital Markets roles?
Hi- I am currently interviewing for several Capital Markets associate/analyst roles. I know they will test me on Argus and Excel and I taught Enterprise myself last year as I knew DCF was going away it would make me valuable.

My question is, how in depth might these tests be? I've previously done portfolio analysis and worked on a few investment sales at my family shop that has a very strong local presence. This has helped me learn and get my foot in the door at certain places. I am confident in my abilities but want to make sure I am fully prepared. Does anyone have any suggestions? This will be for office product, by the way.

Thanks!
[{"id": "e05nylj", "text": "Bump, also interested ", "replies": [], "depth": 1}, {"id": "e072sr0", "text": "Buuuuump", "replies": [], "depth": 1}, {"id": "e07xtee", "text": "The tests won\u2019t be much larger or harder than a case study that you took in DCF class.\n\nThere aren\u2019t going to be a lot of gotchas, they just want to make sure you understand the system.\n\nIf you want to be an absolute stud, you need to understand underwriting beyond Argus. Like what deal mechanics will a buyer come back and hammer you on. Understanding how purchasers look at deals is much more important than plugging numbers in Argus \n\nJust for Reference I am an MD at a dfw firm\nWith about 375M in holdings. When I got here 4 years ago I didn\u2019t even know what the fuck Argus was. But I knew deal dynamics. If you have a good grasp of that the analysis part is simple \n", "replies": [{"id": "e0b48oe", "text": "Great comment as a MD can you elaborate at \u201cdeal details\u201d in a greater manner ? \n\nAlong the lines of exit cap rates, rolling leases and reserves or something a bit more nuanced? ", "replies": [{"id": "e0c8y8h", "text": "Sure. Those items you touched on are key. But a more in-depth understanding such as how does the deal look from a true cash flow perspective.\n\nA potential purchaser will take the model you\u2019ve put together and do one of two things. If the model is sound, they will use most of your assumptions and have great bones to work from. Two trash your numbers if the assumptions are insane and underwrite the deal to their liking which can have a great negative impact for your seller.\n\nFor instance being too aggressive on lease up and downtime assumptions, as well as TI can murder your numbers. So many packages I receive have pipe dream assumptions, like taking an 80% occupied building that has had historical lease up issues and rolling it to 100% leased in 18 months with very little downtime and TI. Sophisticated buyers, the ones you want to attract, will sniff that out and bury you. \n\nBeing realistic and somewhat conservative on your numbers will all ways pay dividends, let the buyer make the push on his internal numbers and you\u2019ll always be golden. \n\nDuring the bidding process the numbers you provided may yield an lower offer initially, but it\u2019s up to the broker you work with to help the buyer push. The worst thing that can happen is to have a hyper aggressive number set, that the buyer calls bullshit on and still get a low ball offer. There is no way to correct that. \n\nAlso understanding the true impact debt has on an asset based on your number set is key... however we can touch on that another time! \n\nAs it relates to exit caps, that\u2019s a really tough point. Most of the time you want to show an aggressive exit cap, but being thoughtful here is important. If you push the cap too much, the price per pound on the asset can get extremely high, and a lot of buyers are concentrated on that more so than the cap. caps will always be dictated my market conditions and what debt looks like. But price per pound is a big factor.\n\nFor example, say you have a class A asset you are showing as an exit, and it pushes the price per pound on the building to 400/sf a foot. The current rent market is at 25, and will grow to 30 in your 10 year analysis. \n\nFor the next guy to get to a 10 yield, they would have to have an average rent of 40/sf throughout the building, and that\u2019s not even factoring in deal Costs like TI and commissions. It\u2019s probably closer to 45/sf. That doesn\u2019t pencil.", "replies": [], "depth": 3}], "depth": 2}], "depth": 1}]