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What's The Big Deal?

Wall Street Prep 14 Episodes Jun 18, 2026

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.

Episodes

EX-BANKERS EXPLAIN: Investment Banking Mistakes To AVOID In Your First Year Jun 18, 2026 1851 It's summer training season. Both Debs and Graham are spending their days running analyst and associate programmes at major firms, which makes this the right moment to step back from the deal-of-the-week format and share the kind of candid advice they wish someone had given them on day one.Graham opens with his own first-year story at Lehman Brothers in 2005, including the pitch book error th

The $1.75 Trillion SpaceX IPO: Everything You Need to Know. Jun 11, 2026 2121 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 rath

Will the $4 Trillion AI IPO Wave Break the Market? SpaceX, OpenAI & Anthropic Jun 4, 2026 1694 Three mega IPOs are heading to market: SpaceX, OpenAI and Anthropic. Between them they could push the largest tech names to nearly half of the S&P 500, at valuations that have drawn obvious comparisons to the dotcom era. In this episode, Debs and Graham debate whether those comparisons hold, and where they break down.They start with the triggers: extreme index concentration, the scale of the v

Can Claude Replace Investment Bankers? We Graded the Output. May 28, 2026 1472 How good is AI at building a DCF? In this episode, Debs and Graham continue their Claude for Excel series, this time prompting the tool to construct a full discounted cash flow valuation for Lululemon from a single instruction. The goal is to test what AI can and cannot do in real valuation workflows, and what that means for analysts working in equity research, investment banking and M&A.Graha

Claude for Finance: Building a Live Merger Model with AI May 21, 2026 2983 How good is AI at building investment banking models? In this episode, Debs and Graham put Claude for Excel to the test by prompting it to construct a full merger model from scratch, using GameStop's $56 billion bid for eBay as the live case study, but with the focus squarely on the AI workflow rather than the deal itself.Graham walks through the merger model framework from first principles b

Nvidia Under Pressure: Is the AI Chip Monopoly Finally Cracking? May 14, 2026 2244 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 semiconducto

How AI Data Centres Are Funded — And What Happens When the Money Stops May 7, 2026 1633 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 gro

Private Equity: Leveraged Buyouts Explained (How to Analyze Deals Like a Pro) Apr 30, 2026 3769 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 L

How Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan & Morgan Stanley Make Billions (Explained) Apr 23, 2026 2049 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, s

OpenAI vs. Anthropic Explained: Business Models, Valuations & IPO Breakdown Apr 16, 2026 2345 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 actual

Q1 2026: A Record-Breaking M&A Quarter — Inside the Unilever $45BN Deal Apr 9, 2026 1680 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 t

SpaceX to File for Biggest IPO of All-Time ($1.75 Trillion Valuation) Mar 26, 2026 2306 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 201

Will AI Replace Wall Street Investment Banking Jobs? Mar 19, 2026 2900 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 Str

The Truth Behind Paramount's $110 Billion Battle for Warner Bros. Discovery (Winners & Losers) Mar 5, 2026 2185 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 Skydan

What's The Big Deal?

Episodes

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