I would start with these 5 Ares Management interview questions across direct lending, real estate and special opportunities. Three worked answers are below. No signup.
Try the five-question Excel sample before buying. On Gumroad, leave the sample price at $0. Prefer to stay here? The worked examples on this site need no signup.
The open examples cover accounting presentation, real-estate valuation, and distressed-debt returns.
01
First RoundDirect LendingAccounting
Expense versus capitalize R&D
$100 million of R&D - compare the statements when it is expensed versus capitalized, assuming a 25% tax rate.
Say your answer first. Then reveal the steps and check the assumptions.
Reveal the worked answer
Treat this as a simplified comparison, not a choice every accounting rule allows. Assume the $100M is paid in cash, capitalization is permitted, and a 25% cash tax benefit follows the book expense. For the capitalized case, use five-year straight-line amortization starting in year one.
Expense now
Expense $100M. Pre-tax income falls $100M, cash taxes fall $25M, and net income falls $75M. CFO and cash fall $75M; retained earnings fall $75M.
Capitalize
Amortize $20M. Net income falls $15M after tax. Add back $20M of amortization: CFO rises $5M. CFI falls $100M, so total cash falls $95M.
Core difference
The balance sheet adds an $80M net intangible asset and loses $95M cash. Net assets and retained earnings both fall $15M. Compared with expensing, CFO is $80M higher, but cash is $20M lower under these tax assumptions.
Interview check: tax treatment can differ from book treatment. If the cash deduction is the same in both cases, the total cash outflow is the same; do not assume a book-accounting change creates cash.
First RoundReal Estate Private EquityCases & Industry
Use cap-rate math
How do cap rates connect net operating income and property value?
Say your answer first. Then reveal the steps and check the assumptions.
Reveal the worked answer
Cap rate = NOI / property value, so value = NOI / cap rate.
At a 5% cap rate$5M / 5%$100M property value
At a 6% cap rate$5M / 6%$83.3M property value
Conclusion: a 100-basis-point cap-rate expansion cuts value by about 16.7%, holding $5M NOI fixed. NOI is before debt service and capital expenditure, so this is property value, not equity value.
First RoundSpecial OpportunitiesDebt & Leveraged Finance
Solve YTM and MOIC
A second-lien bond trades at 90 with a 10% coupon and two years to maturity - what are YTM and MOIC?
Say your answer first. Then reveal the steps and check the assumptions.
Reveal the worked answer
Assume $100 face value, annual $10 coupons, repayment at par and no default or fees. The cash flows are -90 today, +10 in year one, and +110 in year two.
Interview check: MOIC ignores timing. YTM captures timing but assumes every payment arrives as promised. A second-lien claim can lose money if the borrower defaults; a high quoted YTM is not a guaranteed return.
More questions
Two more prompts stay closed until you commit to an answer. Round and group labels come from the workbook source, not a fixed interview script.
First RoundDirect LendingDebt & Leveraged Finance
1. What's the difference between a secured loan and an unsecured bond?
Check the worked answer
A secured loan has a lien on specified collateral. An unsecured bond has no such lien and relies on the credit of its issuer and any guarantors. Compare the same borrower, guarantees and lien rank before drawing a recovery conclusion.
Loans are often floating-rate and prepayable; bonds are often fixed-rate with call protection. Those are common terms, not definitions. Bonds can be secured, loans can be unsecured, and either can have different covenants. Yield also depends on credit risk, maturity and market pricing. Security alone does not prove which instrument pays more.
First RoundDirect LendingDebt & Leveraged Finance
2. Explain the debt recovery waterfall and define yield to maturity.
Check the worked answer
I would start with the legal entity and its collateral, not one company-wide queue. In a simplified U.S. case, first-lien claims recover from their collateral before second-lien claims. Any unsecured deficiency joins the applicable unsecured class. Subordinated claims rank behind senior claims; equity gets the residual. Costs, statutory priorities, superpriority financing and guarantees can change the result.
YTM is the discount rate that makes the promised coupon and principal cash flows equal the bond price. It is not a forecast of distressed recovery. If payments fall short or arrive late, the realized return can differ.
Want the whole set?
The full workbook
The paid file contains 65 source prompts collected from 2020 onward: 40 worked answers and 25 practice frameworks. Every prompt has a recorded round. Filter by round, group, type, and topic.
Rounds: First Round 32, Second Round 15, Superday 11, Third Round 7. Groups: private equity (ACOF) 17, real estate PE 13, direct lending 11, special opportunities (ASOF) 9, plus smaller private equity, real estate and infrastructure sets. Largest topic: Cases & Industry 17, then Behavioral 13 and Debt & Leveraged Finance 8.