Discussing Recent IPOs in ECM Interviews

Introduction

Recent-IPO discussion is one of the most common ECM interview questions, appearing in some form in essentially every Super Day round and frequently in first-round phone screens. The question typically takes the form "tell me about a recent IPO you've been following" or "what 2025 IPO interested you most and why." The strong answer follows a five-element framework that demonstrates structured analytical thinking: (1) thesis covering why the company went public and what the capital is for, (2) pricing dynamics including the range, final price, IPO discount, and oversubscription levels, (3) banker selection identifying the lead-left bookrunner and joint bookrunners with the sector rationale for each, (4) performance covering first-day pop, post-IPO trading trajectory, and lockup expiration dynamics, (5) the candidate's own analytical view that ties the deal to broader market themes. Pre-interview preparation requires selecting 2-3 specific deals from the past 12 months and drilling each across the five elements until the candidate can discuss them fluently for 5-10 minutes with follow-up probing. The 2025 cycle's marquee deals (CoreWeave, Klarna, Medline, Bullish, Circle, Figma, CATL) are all credible candidates for the discussion.

The Five-Element Framework

The structured framework for discussing recent IPOs in ECM interviews. The framework covers: (1) thesis (why the company went public and capital use), (2) pricing dynamics (range, final price, IPO discount, oversubscription), (3) banker selection (lead-left, joint bookrunners, sector rationale), (4) performance (first-day pop, post-IPO trading, lockup), (5) the candidate's analytical view. The framework provides structure that signals analytical thinking while allowing the candidate's individual perspective to come through in element 5.

Each element of a strong recent-IPO discussion serves a specific signaling purpose.

Element 1: Thesis

A clean thesis identifies why the company went public and what the capital will be used for. The articulation should cover the company's business model and competitive positioning, the strategic objectives the IPO supports (capital for growth, sponsor exit, balance sheet refinancing, partial liquidity for early shareholders), the timing rationale (why now versus six months ago or six months later), and the broader market context that supports the thesis. The thesis signals whether the candidate understands the company's underlying business or just the deal mechanics.

Element 2: Pricing Dynamics

Pricing is the deal's journey from initial range through final price. Cover the initial filing range, the upsize or downsize through marketing, the final pricing decision, the IPO discount applied (typically 10-15 percent versus prevailing comparable trading multiples), the oversubscription level, and any specific demand-side dynamics (cornerstone commitments, anchor investors, retail participation). The pricing answer signals whether the candidate understands bookbuild mechanics.

Element 3: Banker Selection

Banker selection covers who led the deal and why. Identify the lead-left bookrunner with its franchise rationale, the joint bookrunners with sector or capability-specific rationale, the size of the bookrunner syndicate, and any meaningful banker dynamics (a bake-off win, a sector specialist's specific role, a relationship-driven inclusion). The banker articulation signals whether the candidate reads ECM franchise dynamics.

Element 4: Performance

Performance is the post-IPO trading trajectory. Cover the first-day pop or break, the trajectory through the first 90 days, lockup expiration dynamics and price action around lockup, broader sector performance comparison, and any specific events that affected post-IPO trading (earnings reports, regulatory developments, sector rotation). The performance answer signals whether the candidate continues engaging with the deal post-IPO.

Element 5: Your Analytical View

The analytical view ties the deal to broader market themes and surfaces the candidate's own perspective. The articulation connects the deal to 2025-2026 themes (AI capex cycle, sponsor backlog clearing, mega-IPO pipeline, post-IPO bloodletting pattern), identifies what the deal teaches about ECM market dynamics, offers a specific judgment (the deal was priced well, the deal was underpriced, the bookrunner mix was suboptimal) backed by reasoning, and projects forward implications for related deals or market segments.

Recent-Deal Selection

The process by which interview candidates select specific deals to drill in depth before live interviews. Strong selection covers 2-3 deals from the past 12 months across diverse themes (AI capex, sponsor exit, valuation reset, cross-border, mega-IPO) to provide flexibility across interview question framings. Each selected deal should be drilled across the five-element framework with 8-12 minute discussion capability.

The 2025-2026 cycle offers multiple credible deal templates spanning AI infrastructure, valuation reset, PE-backed mega-exit, and first-day-pop-and-pullback patterns.

CoreWeave: AI Infrastructure Template

CoreWeave's March 2025 IPO illustrates the AI infrastructure capex template. Thesis: AI hyperscaler infrastructure provider funded continued data-center capex through public-market access; capital use was incremental data-center build-out plus refinancing of capital-intensive equipment leases. Pricing: priced at $40 below initial $47-55 range, raised $1.5 billion; first-day flat trading at offering. Bankers: Morgan Stanley lead-left with Goldman, JPMorgan, BofA in supporting roles; rationale was Morgan Stanley's tech franchise plus the multi-bank distribution. Performance: rose to $52.57 within three trading days (about 31 percent above the $40 IPO price, including a 42 percent single-day surge on day three) and closed 2025 at approximately $71.90, roughly 80 percent above the IPO price (after peaking near $187 mid-year before a Q4 pullback). Analytical view: the disciplined pricing produced clean post-IPO trading; CoreWeave illustrates the right-pricing template versus aggressive-pricing failures in the same cohort.

Klarna: Valuation Reset Template

Klarna's September 2025 NYSE listing illustrates the unicorn valuation reset template. Thesis: the BNPL/payments leader returned to capital markets after the 2022-2024 IPO drought, with capital use for ongoing growth investment plus partial liquidity for early shareholders. Pricing: raised $1.37 billion at $15.1 billion valuation, materially below the 2021 private peak of $45.6 billion (67 percent valuation reset); first-day 15 percent pop. Bankers: Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan as lead bookrunners; broader European and US distribution syndicate. Performance: declined 26 percent from IPO price through year-end. Analytical view: Klarna illustrates the staged valuation reset that several growth-era unicorns experienced; the first-day pop suggested the reset had already cleared expectations, but post-IPO weakness reflected continued multiple compression in the BNPL category.

Medline: PE-Backed Mega-Exit Template

Medline's December 17, 2025 Nasdaq listing illustrates the PE-backed mega-exit template. Thesis: Blackstone, Carlyle, and Hellman & Friedman exited their 2021 $34 billion take-private investment through public-market issuance; capital use included partial sponsor monetization plus continued operations. Pricing: priced at $29 per share within the $26-30 initial range in an upsized offering of 216 million shares (raised from an original 179 million), raising $6.26 billion at a $38 billion equity valuation, with the underwriters' subsequent full greenshoe exercise of an additional 32.4 million shares bringing total proceeds to roughly $7.2 billion; the largest IPO of 2025. Bankers: Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, BofA Securities, and JPMorgan as joint global coordinators and lead bookrunners. Performance: shares closed first day at $41 (up 41.3 percent), pushing market cap above $54 billion. Analytical view: Medline validated the 2025 PE backlog clearing thesis and the IPO market's capacity to absorb mega-deals when fundamentals support pricing; the deal anchored the PE-backed IPO doubling from 12 in 2024 to 24 in 2025.

Figma: First-Day Pop and Pullback Template

Figma's July 31, 2025 NYSE listing (ticker FIG) illustrates the post-Adobe-block IPO template. Thesis: Figma listed after the 2023 termination of its $20 billion Adobe acquisition (blocked by European regulators on antitrust concerns); capital use included primary growth investment plus partial liquidity for early shareholders. Pricing: priced at $33 per share (top of upsized $25-28 range that was raised pre-pricing), opened at $85, closed first day at $115.50 (250 percent first-day pop, the year's most extreme), peaked at $142.92 before pulling back to $79-82 range by mid-August. Bankers: Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, Allen & Company, and JPMorgan as joint lead book-runners. Analytical view: Figma's pricing illustrated the bookrunner-versus-issuer tension where underwriters "left money on the table" through the deep IPO discount; the subsequent pullback validated that the 250 percent pop was unsustainable. The deal exemplifies the 2025 cohort's bifurcation pattern (extreme first-day pops followed by post-pop bloodletting that hit 11 of the 20 largest 2025 IPOs).

The recent-IPO framework above is the principal mechanism for demonstrating market awareness in interviews. The next article walks through the IBD trading-floor wall in interviews, where candidates routinely confuse the wall structure and need a clear framework to articulate it correctly.