@Jessica Booker @Amma Usman @Andrei Radu
When a firm says that during an interview they will be looking for "knowledge of current affairs and ability to apply this knowledge to the benefit of a discussion" in a case study exercise, what exactly do they mean by this? Does this mean that, for example if the case study is related to an M&A and has a specific element to it, I should be able to discuss a similar M&A with that element that has been in the news lately? Apologies for a clumsy question.
If you were able to add value to your analysis by discussing how a certain element has been dealt with in another deal that would definitely be impressive, but you are certainly not expected to do that. As Jessica said, firms are looking to test (i) the level of your commercial awareness - just how much you know about what is going on in the business world; and (ii) the extent to which you can analyze the relevance of that in the context of the particular case study you are completing. For (i) I think general commercial awareness includes both trends (like the growth of private capital, antitrust enforcement, declining inflation) and relevant events (like the US elections, new regulations and laws, wars). For (ii) firms are looking to see if you can use your knowledge for the purposes of commercial analysis.
For instance, say at one point in an M&A case study you are looking at competition law compliance concerns. Besides using the information given in the exercise, you can bring in the fact that in the US, UK and EU in recent years antitrust authorities have been a lot more active and assertive when doing merger control assessments, which is potentially a cause for concern. To make for a more nuanced take, you can then say that with the new US administration having a significantly more relaxed attitude towards antitrust enforcement and with recessions in the EU bringing back a more business-friendly attitude in Brussels, it is not that problematic. Finally, though not necessary, you could integrate some prior transaction knowledge and conclude that in a worst case scenario the issue could be dealt with by negotiating with the regulators and either carving out parts of the acquired business or proposing behavioral remedies (as was done in the Microsoft-Activision Blizzard deal).
