case library / m&a and investment decisions
Pearl Resorts
A hard m&a and investment decisions case, interviewer-led, built for live practice with an AI interviewer that grades like a coach.
- Investment payback construction lag
- interviewer-led
- hard
- ~40 min
- 2 exhibits
Our client, Pearl Resorts, owns and operates three luxury island resorts. They're considering building a fourth property, on the same archipelago, designed specifically to attract 'Elite' guests, an ultra-high-spend segment their existing three resorts capture only incidentally today.
What happens when you run it live
Your interviewer holds answers to 4 clarifying questions candidates usually ask, so opening the case correctly gets rewarded. The case unfolds over 8 phases, with 2 exhibits handed to you at the right moments. You structure, do the math out loud, and close with a recommendation. Then you get a graded report across structure, quant, insight, synthesis, and communication, with the specific moments that cost you points. The exhibits, numbers, and answer key stay inside the live session, the way a real interviewer keeps the case packet on their side of the table.
How to approach a m&a and investment decisions case
Acquisition and investment cases ask whether a deal or a capital project is worth doing. The spine is almost always standalone value, plus synergies or incremental cash flows, versus price and risk. Interviewers expect you to separate the value of the asset as it is from the value the buyer adds.
Bring the finance instincts: payback period, break-even, simple NPV logic, and cannibalization when the new thing eats the old thing's revenue. Strong candidates also name the deal-breaker risks (integration, regulation, construction lag, financing) and end with a clear go or no-go with conditions.
Run Pearl Resorts live, free. About 40 minutes, graded in the same sitting.
Start practicing freefree · no card · graded in minutes