Graphite Capital Interview Questions & Answers

Contrast Graphite’s £30m–£150m mid-market focus, concentrated team, hands-on management partnerships and growth-driven value creation with larger-cap investing.

Health & Pharma Services, Education, and Data & Tech-Enabled Services; articulate why each offers structural demand or scalable models.

Defensible niche, resilient demand, recurring revenues, cash conversion, strong management and identifiable growth levers.

Correlation, regulatory exposure and valuation crowding; offset with differentiated subsectors and diligence.

Evidence of delivery, talent gaps, integrity, capital allocation and ability to scale; reference checks and incentives.

Connect collaborative decision-making and long-term relationships to a specific example from your experience.

Give a clear thesis, unit economics, cash conversion, customer risk and valuation discipline.

Use a current official portfolio case study; discuss thesis, value creation and investment risks, not assumed confidential financials.

Discuss distribution scaling, technology, international expansion, management enhancement and strategic acquisitions.

Ask about customers, growth constraints, competitive edge, cash flow, team and strategic priorities.

Income statement profit feeds cash flow and retained earnings; balance sheet balances assets against liabilities and equity.

EBITDA excludes capex, working capital, cash tax and financing costs.

Pretax income falls £1m; with 25% tax, net income falls £0.75m, cash flow adds back £1m, net cash rises £0.25m, assuming tax shield usable.

Equity value plus net debt and other claims such as preferred/minority interests, less non-operating cash where applicable.

Trading and transaction multiples, DCF and unit economics; normalise enrolment, utilisation and seasonality.

Capital-intensive, lease-heavy or poor-cash-conversion businesses; compare EV/EBITA, EBIT, FCF and sector metrics.

Adjust demonstrably non-recurring items, owner costs, pro forma acquisitions and sustainable overheads; scrutinise aggressive add-backs.

Operating current assets minus operating current liabilities; growth can consume cash even when EBITDA rises.

ARR quality, retention, gross margin, cash burn, Rule of 40 and peer multiples, with a path to sustainable cash flow.

Higher financing costs and discount rates, reduced debt capacity and potential multiple compression.

Entry valuation, sources and uses, operating forecast, debt schedule, exit value and sponsor returns.

EBITDA growth, exit multiple, debt paydown, entry valuation, dividends and holding period.

Assuming no other claims/cash and all debt funds the purchase, sponsor equity is £45m.

108/45 = 2.40x gross MOIC.

2.4^(1/5)-1 ≈ 19.1% gross IRR.

Mandatory use of excess free cash flow to repay debt, reducing leverage and interest expense.

Exit EV falls by exit EBITDA, before debt changes; quantify the equity impact.

Earnings volatility, customer concentration, lender constraints and downside protection.

Management reinvests proceeds into the deal, aligning incentives but requiring fair governance.

Stress revenue, margins, working capital, capex, interest, debt covenants and exit multiples.

Quality of care, staffing, regulation, occupancy, referrals, payor mix, safeguarding and local demand.

Volumes, reimbursement, capacity, utilisation, turnaround, clinical quality and capex.

Model compliance costs, licence risks, inspections, reimbursement and reputational downside.

Revenue by client, programme, therapeutic area, contract duration and switching costs.

Scale and purchasing leverage versus integration, clinician retention, quality and regulatory consistency.

Build wage cost by role and headcount, recruitment friction, price pass-through and margin sensitivity.

Structural demand follows demographics and healthcare needs; cyclical demand varies with budgets and economic conditions.

Product liability, recalls, reimbursement, channel dependence, inventory and regulatory approvals.

Fill rates, schools served, candidate supply, compliance, repeat bookings, gross profit per placement and working capital.

Student outcomes, regulatory exposure, enrolment, acquisition cost, contracts and university dependence.

Site-level payback, utilisation, local demand, staffing, property costs and quality control.

Proprietary datasets, integration into workflows, recurring contracts, quality and switching costs.

Revenue from the same customer cohort including upsells and churn, divided by its prior-period revenue.

Retention by vintage, expansion, churn and gross margin; distinguish logo from revenue retention.

Separate recurring subscription economics from cyclical events revenue; assess customer overlap and cross-sell.

Evaluate automation upside, defensibility, pricing pressure, data rights and implementation costs.

Customer pull, local economics, compliance, leadership, channel strategy and phased milestones.

Architecture, security, code quality, infrastructure, roadmap, engineering retention and remediation capex.

Thesis, market, management, financials, returns, downside, diligence, ESG and actionable value-creation plan.

Market size, growth, competition, customers, pricing, unit economics and management execution.

Target fit, valuation, integration capacity, antitrust, financing and post-merger operating model.

Alignment to equity outcomes, retention, sensible vesting and protection from unintended risk-taking.

Revenue quality, EBITDA, cash conversion, net debt, customer and talent KPIs against underwriting.

Bridge assumptions to historical cohorts, pipeline, capacity and external market evidence.

Unresolvable quality, regulatory, integrity or cash-flow issues, or an unacceptable risk-adjusted price.

IRR compression, liquidity timing, fund concentration and potentially changed market multiples.

Identify material operational and regulatory risks, improvement cost, measurement and exit buyer expectations.

Diagnose revenue versus margin, preserve liquidity, refresh forecast and support focused interventions.

Clarify actual EBITDA and valuation; examine school contracts, tutor supply, customer concentration and debt capacity.

Consider receivables, staffing costs, capex, acquisitions, tax and payment timing.

Investigate cohort concentration, product fit, expansion economics and sustainability.

Assess funding, synergies, integration and exit valuation; multiple arbitrage is not guaranteed.

Compare equity IRR upside against downside coverage, covenant headroom and refinancing risk.

Describe problem, market, moat, cash profile, management, value creation and key risk.

Segment customers, test elasticity, protect high-value service, analyse margins and strategic response.

Demand evidence, regulatory exposure, channel economics, hiring, capex and break-even timeline.

Compare downside-adjusted returns, management, cash conversion, conviction and execution burden.

Summarise evidence, decision points, learning and reusable diligence insights.