Get the view from the inside. Every week, Graham Smith (ex-Ares) and Deborah Taylor (ex-Barclays) take a look at Wall Street’s headline-grabbing deals.
From mega-mergers and hostile takeovers to complex private credit transactions, they break down the why, the how, and the who behind the numbers.
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The Truth Behind Paramount's $110 Billion Battle for Warner Bros. Discovery (Winners & Losers)
Saison 1 · Épisode 2
jeudi 5 mars 2026 • Durée 36:25
Welcome to the second episode of the 'What's the Big Deal?' (WTBD) podcast powered by Wall Street Prep.
In this episode, Wall-Street Experts Deborah Taylor, (former Director at Barclays) and Graham Smith (former Director at Ares) dive deep into Paramount's $110B acquisition of WBD.
They discuss why Netflix's $27.75 bid wasn't actually "cheaper" than the Skydance $31 offer once you account for the complex spin-off mechanics of the linear TV business.
They explore the "circular" valuation methods where investment banks used Larry Ellison’s previous deal to justify the price of this one, alongside the eye-watering $2.8B breakup fee paid to Netflix and the "ticking fee" that makes every delay incredibly expensive.
Finally, they look at the real human cost, from the CEO's $700M payout to the creative teams facing $6B in "synergies" and budget cuts.
The financial health of this acquisition is a major talking point, with the combined entity looking at a staggering $85B in debt, placing it firmly in LBO territory at roughly 6x EBITDA.
Debs breaks down her exclusive analysis showing a measly 5-6% EPS accretion, raising the question of whether this deal actually creates value for anyone other than the Ellison family.
With S&P already placing the company on credit watch, the pressure is on to see if those massive promised synergies ever actually materialize.
Why Wall Street Prep?
Wall Street Prep is the trusted training provider for the world’s top investment banks, private equity firms, Fortune 1000 companies and business schools.
Our online training and instructor-led boot camps are direct adaptations of our corporate training, making Wall Street Prep the ideal choice for those looking to break into finance.
Wall Street Prep: https://www.wallstreetprep.com/ Download Free Financial Models: https://www.wallstreetprep.com/free-resources/ Virtual Finance Boot Camps: https://www.wallstreetprep.com/public-courses/ Financial & Valuation Modeling Certification Program (Premium Package): https://www.wallstreetprep.com/self-study-programs/premium-package/ Private Equity Certificate Program with Wharton Business School: https://wallstreetprep.wharton.upenn.edu/pe-certificate/?utm_source=wsp&utm_campaign=wspSiteRefer&utm_content=siteNav AI for Business & Finance Certificate Program: https://wallstreetprep.business.columbia.edu/ai-certification/?utm_source=wsp&utm_campaign=wspSiteRefer&utm_content=siteNav
J.P. Morgan & Allen & Co’s Fairness Opinion: https://felix.fe.training/filing/document.php/?hid=69a18f03a63c5
Time Stamps:
Overview: 0:37 - 5:41 Which Bid is Better for WBD Shareholders? (Valuation): 05:43 - 13:18 What Would Have Made Netflix Preferable?: 13:19 - 16:10 The Mechanics of the Deal: 16:52 - 21:00 Political Lobbying, Financing, Creative Industry Support: 21:01 - 23:20 J.P. Morgan's & Allen & Co's Valuation (Fairness Opinion): 23:21 - 26:16 Is This a Good Deal or is Paramount Overpaying? 26:17 - 36:25
DISCLAIMER:
The information provided in this video is for educational and entertainment purposes only and does not constitute financial, investment, tax, or legal advice. Investing involves risk, and you may lose some or all of your capital. Past performance is not indicative of future results. Please conduct your own due diligence or consult with a certified professional before making any financial decisions.
Nvidia Under Pressure: Is the AI Chip Monopoly Finally Cracking?
Saison 1 · Épisode 12
jeudi 14 mai 2026 • Durée 37:24
Every AI product you use runs on semiconductors. And for the last several years, the narrative has been almost entirely about Nvidia.
But Q1 2025 results are painting a more nuanced picture and for the first time, the question of whether Nvidia's dominance is structural or temporary feels like a live debate rather than a hypothetical.
In this episode, Debs and Graham go inside the semiconductor industry from first principles, mapping out who does what across the AI chip ecosystem before turning to the latest results and what they mean for valuations.
Graham explains how GPUs, CPUs and memory chips work together to power AI, covering why the parallel computational demands of AI models require so much chip capacity, why that has driven up the price of consumer memory, and why Nvidia's software ecosystem creates a lock-in that competitors are only now beginning to challenge seriously.
Debs then walks through the competitive landscape in detail: Broadcom winning custom chip mandates from Google and Meta on energy efficiency grounds, AMD posting 57% data centre revenue growth, TSMC delivering 41% revenue growth with 66% margins, Samsung flagging memory supply constraints into 2027, and Intel up 150% year to date on the back of a foundry pivot and reported talks with Apple.
The valuation discussion unpacks why chip designers like AMD trade at a premium to manufacturers like TSMC despite TSMC's superior margins, the role of CapEx intensity and cash conversion in driving that gap, and the Taiwan geopolitical risk discount embedded in TSMC's 18x multiple.
The episode closes with Debs and Graham weighing whether semiconductor valuations reflect genuine AI demand or a market that has run ahead of itself, and flags Nvidia's own results on 20 May as the next major test.
Key Discussion Points:
Semiconductor ecosystem: GPUs, CPUs, memory and custom chips, who makes what and how they work together.
Nvidia's competitive position: software lock-in, hardware leadership and the first real signs of competitive pressure.
How AI Data Centres Are Funded — And What Happens When the Money Stops
Saison 1 · Épisode 11
jeudi 7 mai 2026 • Durée 27:13
OpenAI has missed a revenue target in the run-up to what is expected to be one of the largest IPOs in history. Sam Altman and the company's CFO have been publicly at odds.
And behind all of this sits close to $700 billion of committed CapEx across the major hyperscalers, much of it financed through project finance structures that were built on the assumption of hyper-aggressive AI revenue growth.
In this episode, Debs and Graham use the OpenAI revenue miss as a lens to examine how AI infrastructure financing actually works, who is exposed when things wobble, and how a shortfall at the end of the chain could propagate upward.
Debs walks through the mechanics of project finance as it has been adapted for data centre construction. SPVs are set up to construct and operate individual facilities, with construction contracts and take or pay revenue agreements signed in advance to create predictable cash flows.
That predictability is what allows the SPV to finance itself at up to 90% debt, significantly more leveraged than a typical LBO, and on 15 year lease terms.
The financing is bankruptcy remote, meaning SPV investors have no direct recourse to the hyperscalers themselves.
That structure works cleanly until one of the counterparties at the end of the chain stops performing.
Oracle, which handles two thirds of OpenAI's compute commitments and carries the weakest credit rating among the major hyperscalers, is identified as the most exposed party.
A sustained revenue miss from OpenAI puts Oracle under pressure on its own SPV contract obligations, raising the prospect of a credit downgrade from just above investment grade to junk, with potential covenant implications that would compound the problem further.
The episode closes with the broader question of whether the AI infrastructure build-out is entering its first genuine stress test, and what the next 12 months of investor reporting might finally reveal about the numbers behind the narrative.
Key Discussion Points:
Private Equity: Leveraged Buyouts Explained (How to Analyze Deals Like a Pro)
Saison 1 · Épisode 10
jeudi 30 avril 2026 • Durée 01:02:49
This week Graham and Debs try something different.
Rather than dissecting a single deal, they go back to basics with one of the most important concepts in finance — the leveraged buyout — and build up from first principles using two of the biggest real-world examples in the market right now: the $18B acquisition of Hologic and the $55B acquisition of Electronic Arts.
Graham walks through the core LBO framework using an accessible house purchase analogy, explaining how leverage turns a 1.5x equity return into a 3x return, what drives that amplification, and what the key variables in any LBO analysis actually are.
From there the conversation covers what makes a good LBO candidate, the concept of cash conversion, how loan-to-value has evolved since the early days of private equity, and the three main value creation levers available to a private equity owner.
The second half of the episode puts theory into practice.
Graham runs a live napkin LBO on both the Hologic and EA deals — walking through sources and uses, entry multiples, debt paydown assumptions and return calculations — and asks the central question: do the numbers actually make sense?
The episode closes with a broader conversation about the evolution of private equity — from the generalist, high-leverage model of the early 90s to today's specialist, operationally-focused landscape — and what record levels of dry powder mean for returns going forward.
Key Discussion Points:
LBO fundamentals — what a leveraged buyout is, how leverage amplifies equity returns, and the key variables that drive an LBO model.
LBO candidates — what makes a business suitable for a leveraged buyout: cash conversion, recurring revenues, predictable cash flows.
Sources and uses — how deals get financed, what refinancing existing debt means and why a target's cash is a legitimate source of transaction funding.
Money multiple vs. IRR — what each metric measures and why you need both to evaluate a deal properly.
How Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan & Morgan Stanley Make Billions (Explained)
Saison 1 · Épisode 9
jeudi 23 avril 2026 • Durée 34:09
Q1 2026 delivered one of the strongest quarters on record for the major investment banks and in this episode, Debs and Graham break down exactly what drove it.
Starting with the headline numbers at Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley - nearly $90 billion in combined revenue, up 12% year on year.
They unpack why this quarter was unusual: all three core revenue engines fired simultaneously, something that rarely happens.
The conversation moves through each division in turn.
On the M&A and ECM side, fees were up 40% year on year, with Graham making the case that pent-up demand is driving a deal pipeline that could make 2026 a record year.
Trading revenues across the top five banks came in at nearly $50 billion.
A figure that surprised even seasoned market watchers, with Debs explaining why volatility, not bull markets, is the real trading revenue driver, and why JP Morgan,
Goldman and Morgan Stanley each benefited for very different reasons.
Wealth management, meanwhile, posted quieter but resilient growth on the back of significant asset inflows.
The episode also doubles as an investment banking primer.
With Debs fresh from teaching spring week programmes at major banks, she and Graham walk through how the different divisions are structured, what each one actually does, and what a career in each area really looks and feels like.
They close with the central question: is this a one-quarter spike driven by exceptional market conditions, or the beginning of a sustained recovery for investment banking?
Key Discussion Points:
Q1 earnings overview: combined revenues, growth rates and why broad-based outperformance across all divisions is unusual.
M&A and ECM recovery: what's driving the 40% fee growth and whether the pipeline supports continued momentum.
OpenAI vs. Anthropic Explained: Business Models, Valuations & IPO Breakdown
Saison 1 · Épisode 8
jeudi 16 avril 2026 • Durée 39:05
ChatGPT vs. Claude.
Consumer vs. enterprise.
Own your infrastructure vs. lease it.
On the surface, OpenAI and Anthropic look like the same business.
Look closer and the differences are significant and they matter enormously for investors.
In this episode of WTBD, Debs and Graham go under the hood of the two most talked-about AI companies in the world, breaking down what their business models actually look like, how their revenues compare, what recent fundraising rounds tell us about their valuations, and whether there's really room for both to win.
Topics covered:
→ Business model differences: consumer vs. enterprise, API vs. subscriptions
→ Infrastructure strategy: why owning vs. leasing compute matters long-term
→ Strategic partnerships: Microsoft, Google, Amazon and what they signal
→ Revenue and cost efficiency: who's doing more with less
→ Recent fundraising: $850B vs. $380B, why the valuation gap?
→ IPO outlook: target valuations, retail investor appetite, and the $1 trillion question
→ Winner-takes-all or fragmented market? The $5 trillion AI market breakdown
Whether you're an investor weighing up the AI space, a finance professional tracking the IPO pipeline, or just trying to cut through the hype, this is the episode for you.
Why Wall Street Prep?
Wall Street Prep is the trusted training provider for the world’s top investment banks, private equity firms, Fortune 1000 companies and business schools.
Our online training and instructor-led boot camps are direct adaptations of our corporate training, making Wall Street Prep the ideal choice for those looking to break into finance.DISCLAIMER: The information provided in this video is for educational and entertainment purposes only and does not constitute financial, investment, tax, or legal advice.Investing involves risk, and you may lose some or all of your capital. Past performance is not indicative of future results. Please conduct your own due diligence or consult with a certified professional before making any financial decisions.
Q1 2026: A Record-Breaking M&A Quarter — Inside the Unilever $45BN Deal
Saison 1 · Épisode 7
jeudi 9 avril 2026 • Durée 28:00
Q1 2026 just delivered the most mega-deals in a single quarter, ever!
But not every deal in this bumper period is one to celebrate.
This week Deborah and Graham break down what's driving the surge in $10BN+ transactions, then go deep on one of the quarter's most talked-about deals: Unilever selling its food business, including Marmite and Hellmann's, to McCormick for $45 billion.
On the surface it looks like a bold strategic pivot.
But when you crunch the numbers, the picture gets complicated fast.
Low valuation multiples, 4x leverage, €500M+ in separation costs, and a structure that means Unilever isn't actually exiting at all, yet.
What you'll learn:
• Why Q1 2026 may be the best quarter for mega-deal M&A on record and what's really driving it
• How pent-up demand and a permissive antitrust environment are unlocking dealmaking despite geopolitical uncertainty
• Why Unilever has been systematically exiting food, and what structural pressures are hitting the whole industry
• What a Reverse Morris Trust actually is, and why it makes this more of a spin-off than a sale
• Why the Kraft Heinz deal fell apart, and what that meant for Unilever's options
• How to read the valuation: 13.8x EBITDA, 4x leverage, and what the market's 7% share price reaction tells you
• Why private equity wasn't interested, and what that says about the investment case for food businesses right now
Why Wall Street Prep?
Wall Street Prep is the trusted training provider for the world’s top investment banks, private equity firms, Fortune 1000 companies and business schools.
Our online training and instructor-led boot camps are direct adaptations of our corporate training, making Wall Street Prep the ideal choice for those looking to break into finance.
DISCLAIMER:
The information provided in this video is for educational and entertainment purposes only and does not constitute financial, investment, tax, or legal advice.Investing involves risk, and you may lose some or all of your capital. Past performance is not indicative of future results. Please conduct your own due diligence or consult with a certified professional before making any financial decisions.
SpaceX to File for Biggest IPO of All-Time ($1.75 Trillion Valuation)
Saison 1 · Épisode 5
jeudi 26 mars 2026 • Durée 38:26
Elon Musk's SpaceX is reportedly preparing to file its U.S. IPO prospectus as early as this week, targeting a public listing this June.
According to new reports from the Information, advisors now predict the company could try to raise a record-breaking $75 billion, far above the $50 billion previously touted.
This would more than double the previous $29 billion record set by Saudi Aramco in 2019.
To put this figure into perspective, this single listing would surpass the total proceeds raised by every other U.S. IPO this year combined
At a projected valuation of $1.75 trillion, SpaceX would instantly become the 7th largest public company in the world.
While the final valuation and offering size won't be locked in until weeks before the June debut, the structure of the deal is already raising eyebrows.
In a significant departure from Wall Street norms, SpaceX is expected to bypass the standard six-month lockup period.
Additionally, while banks typically limit individual investors to 10% of an IPO, the retail and ultra-high-net-worth investor portion for SpaceX could remarkably exceed 20%.
In this episode of the ‘What’s The Big Deal?’ podcast, Deborah Taylor and Graham Smith discuss the unprecedented valuation, why the usual rules don't apply for Elon, and what this means for investors and capital markets.
Why Wall Street Prep?
Wall Street Prep is the trusted training provider for the world’s top investment banks, private equity firms, Fortune 1000 companies and business schools.
Our online training and instructor-led boot camps are direct adaptations of our corporate training, making Wall Street Prep the ideal choice for those looking to break into finance.
DISCLAIMER:
The information provided in this video is for educational and entertainment purposes only and does not constitute financial, investment, tax, or legal advice.
Investing involves risk, and you may lose some or all of your capital.
Past performance is not indicative of future results. Please conduct your own due diligence or consult with a certified professional before making any financial decisions.
Will AI Replace Wall Street Investment Banking Jobs?
Saison 1 · Épisode 4
jeudi 19 mars 2026 • Durée 48:20
Welcome to the fourth episode of the 'What's the Big Deal?' (WTBD) podcast powered by Wall Street Prep.
AI is advancing at an exponential pace. Tools like Claude, ChatGPT, CoPilot and Shortcut are fundamentally reshaping workflows and what it means to be an investment banking analyst.
But where are we right now? And where are we heading? In this special episode of the podcast Wall Street Prep Founder & CEO Matan Feldman and Graham Smith discuss the current state of play and if analyst jobs are really under threat.
SPOILER ALERT: The overwhelming takeaway is completely counterintuitive to the current prevailing narrative and that is potentially very exciting.
Why Wall Street Prep?
Wall Street Prep is the trusted training provider for the world’s top investment banks, private equity firms, Fortune 1000 companies and business schools.
Our online training and instructor-led boot camps are direct adaptations of our corporate training, making Wall Street Prep the ideal choice for those looking to break into finance.
Time Stamps:
Introduction: 00:00
The Current State of Play for AI Tools in Investment Banking 02:18
How Good Are These Tools Right Now 04:39
What Do These Tools Do Well 5:52
The Dangerous Errors These Tools Make 7:39
Are These Tools Good At Tricky or Advanced Analyst Work 11:42
The Impact Will These Tools Have on IB Recruiting Pathways And What You Need To Be Successful 14:47
The Potential Increased Demand for Investment Bankers 20:52
Are Investment Banks Replacing Analysts With Technology 23:38
What AI Tools Are Investment Banks Using (Claude, CoPilot, GPT) 26:35
The $1.75 Trillion SpaceX IPO: Everything You Need to Know.
Saison 1 · Épisode 16
jeudi 11 juin 2026 • Durée 35:21
SpaceX begins trading on Friday at a $1.75 trillion valuation, and the deal looks unlike any major IPO that has come before it.
In this episode, Debs and Graham go inside the prospectus, break down the unusual structural features Elon Musk has pushed through, and debate whether the valuation can be justified.
The mechanics alone are remarkable. The IPO is being priced at a fixed $135 per share rather than through a traditional book-build range, putting all of the price risk onto buyers and signalling unusual confidence from the issuer. The free float is less than 5%, which sets up potentially significant post-listing volatility.
Retail investors have been given 30% of the allocation, roughly three times the typical share, raising the question of whether this is genuine democratisation or simply exit liquidity for early holders.
The dual-class share structure leaves Musk with 85% of the voting power despite owning around 45% of the economics.
And the underwriting fee, agreed across a syndicate of 23 banks, has come in at 0.75%, the lowest on record for a deal of this size.
The valuation discussion centres on the TAM chart in the prospectus. SpaceX has positioned itself less as a launch and communications business and more as an AI infrastructure and applications story, with $26.5 trillion of AI revenue underpinning the case for the headline number, including $22.7 trillion in enterprise applications alone.
Debs and Graham draw the parallel to the Tesla IPO, where the company was reframed from auto to tech in order to unlock a tech multiple. They also reference Aswath Damodaran's published view that the realistic AI TAM is closer to $5 trillion, and Morningstar's estimate that the fair value of the business is roughly half the IPO valuation.
The episode closes on what to watch when trading begins. With oversubscription pointing to a potential pop, but a low free float, a 180-day staggered lock-up creating an overhang, and the Nasdaq 100 fast entry expected to trigger $30 to $50 billion of forced buying, the first six months are likely to be unusually volatile. Both hosts agree the outcome is genuinely unpredictable.
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Q1 results: AMD, Broadcom, TSMC, Samsung and Intel, what the numbers say about demand, market share and supply constraints.
Valuation framework: why growth and cash conversion drive the premium for chip designers over foundries, and what geopolitical risk does to TSMC's multiple.
Nvidia's S&P 500 weighting: how index inclusion and passive fund flows affect valuation independent of fundamentals.
Outlook: memory supply constraints into 2027, the Intel/Apple story and Nvidia's results on 20 May as the next major market catalyst.
> OpenAI pre-IPO: what the revenue miss and exec conflict signal about the state of the business.
> Hyperscaler CapEx commitments: the scale of spending committed for 2026 and how it is being financed across public and private markets.
> Project finance mechanics: SPV structure, construction contracts, take or pay agreements, and the debt waterfall.
> Leverage and risk: why data centre project finance operates at 90% leverage and why that is only sustainable with locked-in cash flows.
> Oracle's position: credit rating, exposure to OpenAI and the domino risk within the financing chain.
Why Wall Street Prep?
Wall Street Prep is the trusted training provider for the world's top investment banks, private equity firms, Fortune 1000 companies and business schools.
Our online training and instructor-led boot camps are direct adaptations of our corporate training, making Wall Street Prep the ideal choice for those looking to break into finance.
DISCLAIMER:
The information provided in this video is for educational and entertainment purposes only and does not constitute financial, investment, tax, or legal advice. Investing involves risk, and you may lose some or all of your capital.
Past performance is not indicative of future results. Please conduct your own due diligence or consult with a certified professional before making any financial decisions.
The Hologic LBO walkthrough — entry and exit multiples, debt structure, return sensitivity and the revolving credit facility question.
The EA deal — 30x entry multiple, $20 billion of debt, and why the base case numbers require a significant EBITDA growth story.
Co-investment and sovereign wealth — why mega-deals increasingly rely on structures beyond the traditional GP/LP fund.
The evolution of private equity — dry powder, multiple expansion and why operational improvement matters more than ever.
Why Wall Street Prep?
Wall Street Prep is the trusted training provider for the world's top investment banks, private equity firms, Fortune 1000 companies and business schools.
Our online training and instructor-led boot camps are direct adaptations of our corporate training, making Wall Street Prep the ideal choice for those looking to break into finance.
DISCLAIMER:
The information provided in this video is for educational and entertainment purposes only and does not constitute financial, investment, tax, or legal advice. Investing involves risk, and you may lose some or all of your capital.
Past performance is not indicative of future results.
Please conduct your own due diligence or consult with a certified professional before making any financial decisions.
What You Need To Do As A Future Investment Banker 27:21
Why You Still Need Fundamental Financial Knowledge As Well As AI Tools 30:03
The Dangerous Temptation Of AI Tools & The Wrong Way To Break Into The Industry 34:29
Which Divisions Are Adopting AI 36:26
What AI Doesn’t Do: 39:23
Are Roles Under Threat & How Do You Future Proof Yourself 42:42
Will Be An Investment Banker In The Future Become More Interesting 45:50
Advice for Analysts & Future Investment Bankers 47:33
DISCLAIMER:
The information provided in this video is for educational and entertainment purposes only and does not constitute financial, investment, tax, or legal advice.
Investing involves risk, and you may lose some or all of your capital.
Past performance is not indicative of future results.
Please conduct your own due diligence or consult with a certified professional before making any financial decisions.
