Alvarez & Marsal Case Interview Examples: 7 Practice Cases with Worked Answers (2026)

Alvarez & Marsal is a turnaround, restructuring and performance improvement firm, so its cases are about cash, cost and creditors before they are about market share. That is the first thing a practice case has to get right. A market entry framework will not help you when the prompt says the client has five weeks of cash.

A&M's own campus page for its Transaction Advisory Group lists three stages: application review, initial virtual interviews and final in-person interviews. It does not describe the case. We found no official A&M practice case either, so this page does something different: it works seven original cases in the work A&M sells, with every number added up on the page. Candidate reports describe two to three rounds that pair fit questions with a case. If you want the process, rounds and timeline instead of cases, the Alvarez and Marsal case interview guide owns that.

Alvarez & Marsal practice cases at a glance

How an Alvarez & Marsal case works: it follows your practice. A restructuring case asks whether the company survives the quarter, a performance improvement or private equity case asks how to lift EBITDA by a stated amount, and a transaction advisory case asks what the earnings really are. Prep sites and forum coaches agree on the topics and disagree on who leads, so use the table as a map and your invitation as the answer.

The rows above are prep-site and coach reports, not A&M statements, and the coach threads are from 2018 and 2020. One MBB Prep line is worth keeping in your head: the interviewer wants practical reasoning rather than a memorized framework, and bankruptcy law knowledge is not required.

Start free now: Voltigo FastCharge Turnaround is a McKinsey-style turnaround case: a 60-site EV charging network posted an operating loss and the CEO wants a return to profit within a year without hurting reliability. It has 7 questions, 3 with math, 3 exhibits, and a median of 23 minutes across 13 completed voice runs. An AI interviewer runs it out loud, shows each exhibit when you reach it and scores the debrief. Your first full case is free when you create an account.

Case (style, industry)	Quant difficulty	Qualitative difficulty	The math you run	Median time
Voltigo FastCharge Turnaround (McKinsey, EV charging). 7 (3 with math), 3 exhibits.EV chargingQuant difficulty mediumQualitative difficulty medium23 min· 13 voice runsTry free	medium	medium	Loss split, hub energy margin, profit	23 min13 voice runs23 min, 13 voice runs	Try free
MetroFresh Distribution Center Operations Turnaround (McKinsey, grocery distribution). 8 (4 with math), 4 exhibits.grocery distributionQuant difficulty easyQualitative difficulty hard23 min· 17 voice runsTry free	easy	hard	Picking capacity gap, EBITDA initiatives	23 min17 voice runs23 min, 17 voice runs	Try free
AuroraWater Bottling Margin Recovery (McKinsey, packaged beverages). 8 (4 with math), 4 exhibits.packaged beveragesQuant difficulty mediumQualitative difficulty medium22 min· 19 voice runsTry free	medium	medium	Unit-cost savings, EBITDA bridge	22 min19 voice runs22 min, 19 voice runs	Try free
FreshCart Grocery Margin Recovery (BCG, grocery). 8 (2 with math), 2 exhibits.groceryQuant difficulty easyQualitative difficulty mediumFewer than 10 runsTry free	easy	medium	Category gross profit, unit economics per concept	Fewer than 10 runsFewer than 10 runs	Try free
GreenBite Snacks Profitability Reset (McKinsey, packaged snacks). 6 (2 with math), 2 exhibits.packaged snacksQuant difficulty mediumQualitative difficulty easy16 min· 56 voice runsTry free	medium	easy	Channel decline share, partial EBITDA recovery	16 min56 voice runs16 min, 56 voice runs	Try free

All 5 are original practice cases written for Road to Offer. The library has no case in Alvarez & Marsal's own style, so these are matched by case type to what Alvarez & Marsal asks. None is Alvarez & Marsal's own material. More are in the case library, 92 cases in all. Every debrief scores seven categories: structure (25% of the score), quantitative analysis (20%), business judgment (15%), and problem understanding, exhibit reading, communication and synthesis (10% each), with feedback on every question. Median times come from completed runs between June 25 and September 22, 2026, and count runs, not people.

What do these seven Alvarez & Marsal practice cases train?

The seven cases below are labelled by the kind of A&M work they rehearse. The practice split (Restructuring, private equity performance improvement, transaction advisory, consumer and retail) comes from the A&M guide, which sources it to candidate reports. The cases themselves are constructed. Every figure is a case assumption you would be handed or would ask for, not a real client number and not a statistic about A&M.

Use the same loop on every one. State the decision in a sentence, say what has to be true for each answer, ask for the single piece of data that separates them, do the math with units attached, and finish with a recommendation that carries a number and a risk. A&M's pace rewards the candidate who moves to the next step without waiting to be asked, which is why every solution below ends with what you would do next.

Which Alvarez & Marsal practice group does each practice case fit?

Do Cases 1 and 4 for Restructuring, Cases 3 and 2 for PEPI, Case 5 for TAG, and Cases 7 and 6 for the Consumer and Retail Group. The pairing is our judgment from what each group says it does, not an A&M syllabus, and it matters because candidates report that the case follows the practice you apply to.

Ask your recruiter which practice case style applies to your office, and use the A&M guide for how each practice recruits.

Case 1: Build a 13-week cash flow and find the trough

Prompt. Northline Fabrication is a metal fabricator with a $4.0M revolver availability, $3.0M of cash today and a lender that requires at least $1.5M of cash on hand at all times. The lender has asked for a 13-week cash flow. Does the company stay above the floor, and when does it first break it? (Original practice case, not A&M material.)

Clarifying questions to ask. Is the $4.0M the stated facility or the borrowing-base availability? The two can differ, because availability is limited by borrowing base formulas (Wall Street Prep). Are the figures cash, not EBITDA? A 13-week model uses the direct method: weekly cash receipts less weekly cash disbursements. And which payments are lumpy?

Structure. Receipts first (collections by week), then disbursements split into steady items and lumpy items, then opening cash, then the gap to the floor, then the funding options. Say that you will rank the lumpy payments by week, because the trough comes from timing, not from the average.

Data you get when you ask.

The math. A normal week with no lumpy item nets $4.0M - $2.5M - $0.4M = +$1.1M. Each lumpy item then comes off that: payroll weeks net +$1.1M - $2.0M = -$0.9M, rent weeks net +$1.1M - $0.8M = +$0.3M, week 7 nets +$1.1M - $1.1M = $0.0M, and week 13 nets +$1.1M - $0.8M - $1.1M = -$0.8M.

Check the total: receipts are 13 x $4.0M = $52.0M. Disbursements are suppliers $32.5M + capex $5.2M + payroll $12.0M + rent $3.2M + interest $2.2M = $55.1M. Net is -$3.1M, and $3.0M - $3.1M = -$0.1M in week 13. It matches the table.

Read the result. Cash first drops below the $1.5M floor in week 8 at $1.1M. It recovers briefly in week 11 and ends week 13 at -$0.1M, so the shortfall against the floor is $1.5M - (-$0.1M) = $1.6M. The $4.0M availability covers that with $2.4M of headroom. The base case works, which is exactly why the interviewer's next move is to stress it.

The stress. Collections slow by 10% from week 5: $4.0M becomes $3.6M for nine weeks, a loss of 9 x $0.4M = $3.6M. Week 13 cash becomes -$0.1M - $3.6M = -$3.7M, and the shortfall to the floor is $1.5M + $3.7M = $5.2M. Against $4.0M of availability, the gap is $1.2M. The first breach also moves forward: by week 6 cash is $2.0M - 2 x $0.4M = $1.2M, so the floor breaks in week 6, not week 8.

Recommendation. "The base case holds, but only with a $1.6M revolver draw by week 13, and a 10% collections slowdown leaves a $1.2M hole. I would act now on three things. First, cut maintenance capex from $0.4M to $0.2M a week from week 5, which saves 9 x $0.2M = $1.8M and closes the gap with $0.6M to spare. Second, check that $4.0M is real borrowing-base availability. Third, ask the lender for a floor waiver in advance, because the first breach is weeks away and a request is cheaper than a default. The risk is that safe capex deferrals run out: the cushion is $0.6M, thin enough that I would also open a conversation with the two largest suppliers about week-9 payment dates."

What is being scored. Not the weekly arithmetic. It is that you found the week, not the average; you checked the total against the table; you separated the base case from the stress; and you named availability versus facility size. The same discipline is what an Excel version of this exercise tests. If a spreadsheet test is part of your process, our A&M guide covers what candidates report about it.

Practice a separate turnaround case

Consumer Packaged GoodsEasy

Practice the turnaround case

Case 2: Release cash from working capital

Prompt. Harbor Foods is a food distributor with $365M of annual revenue and $292M of cost of goods sold. It must raise liquidity without new debt. How much cash can working capital release, and how fast? (Original practice case, not A&M material.)

Clarifying questions. What are receivable, inventory and payable days today, and on what base? Is any of the payables stretch already used up? Are the lender's covenants measured on net debt, so that cash released counts?

Structure. Receivables, inventory, payables, one lever each, then speed and risk of each, then what the cash is worth. The cash conversion cycle is days of inventory plus days of receivables minus days of payables (Corporate Finance Institute).

The math. Revenue of $365M is $1.0M a day. Cost of goods sold of $292M is $0.8M a day. Receivable days run on revenue; inventory and payable days run on cost of goods sold.

Trade working capital today is $52.0M + $48.0M - $30.4M = $69.6M, and the cycle is 52 + 60 - 38 = 74 days. At the targets (the targets are case assumptions), receivables are 46 x $1.0M = $46.0M, inventory is 52 x $0.8M = $41.6M and payables are 44 x $0.8M = $35.2M. Working capital falls to $46.0M + $41.6M - $35.2M = $52.4M, and the cycle to 46 + 52 - 44 = 54 days.

Cash released is $69.6M - $52.4M = $17.2M. By lever: receivables 6 x $1.0M = $6.0M, inventory 8 x $0.8M = $6.4M, payables 6 x $0.8M = $4.8M, and 6.0 + 6.4 + 4.8 = $17.2M.

The three checks that make it a good answer.

• It is one-time cash, not EBITDA. Releasing $17.2M does not improve profit. At a 9% revolver rate it saves about $17.2M x 9% = $1.5M of interest a year, and that is the profit effect.
• Stretching payables can cost more than it releases. If a supplier offers 2% off for payment in 10 days against net 38, skipping the discount is paying 2 / 98 x 365 / 28 = about 26.6% a year to borrow from that supplier. That is far above a 9% revolver, so stretch only suppliers who give no discount, and only without putting supply at risk.
• Speed differs by lever. Collections can move in weeks, inventory takes months, and payables move only as fast as suppliers agree. If $6.0M of receivables comes in over eight weeks, that is $0.75M a week.

Recommendation. "Working capital can release about $17.2M, cutting the cash cycle from 74 to 54 days. Start with collections, because it is the fastest and the least risky: $6.0M over eight weeks. Then take inventory down by eight days, $6.4M, starting with slow-moving lines. Stretch payables by six days only with suppliers who give no discount, for $4.8M. Treat the total as liquidity, not profit: the profit effect is about $1.5M of interest a year. The main risk is that customers or suppliers push back, so I would sequence by customer and supplier, not apply a blanket target."

Practice a separate retail turnaround case

RetailMedium

Practice the retail turnaround

Case 3: Plan a portfolio company's EBITDA improvement

Prompt. A private equity fund owns Cedar Point Components, an industrial parts maker with $300M of revenue and $36M of EBITDA (a 12% margin). The fund wants EBITDA at $48M within 24 months. Build the plan and say whether it gets there. (Original practice case, not A&M material.)

Clarifying questions. What is the cost base: materials, labor, overtime? How much spend is addressable? What debt sits on the company and what is the covenant?

Structure. The target uplift is $48M - $36M = $12M. Split levers into price, procurement, labor productivity and operations yield. For each, size the gross prize, haircut it for what will actually land, and put timing and cost to achieve beside it.

Data when you ask. Materials spend is $150M. Overtime is $12M. Scrap is 5% of materials. Net debt is $180M, entry was at 8.0x EBITDA ($288M enterprise value), and the covenant allows net debt up to 5.5x EBITDA.

The math.

Gross is $4.5M + $6.0M + $3.0M + $3.0M = $16.5M. Risk-weighted is 3.15 + 4.50 + 2.40 + 2.70 = $12.75M (the realization percentages are case assumptions you should state aloud and defend). That is $0.75M above the $12M target, so EBITDA reaches $36M + $12.75M = $48.75M, with almost no cushion.

What the fund cares about. At the 8.0x entry multiple, $48.75M of EBITDA is worth $390M. Less $180M of net debt, equity is $210M against $108M at entry ($288M - $180M), a multiple of invested capital of 210 / 108 = 1.9x, before any cash the business generates. Leverage falls from 180 / 36 = 5.0x to 180 / 48.75 = 3.7x.

The trap. The covenant is 5.5x. Net debt of $180M breaches it if EBITDA falls below 180 / 5.5 = $32.7M, a drop of 9.1%. If the $9M cost to achieve counts against covenant EBITDA in year one, EBITDA is $36M - $9M = $27M and leverage is 180 / 27 = 6.7x, a breach. So check the covenant definition before you propose the plan, and start with price and overtime, which cost little to execute. Payback on the $9M is $9M / $12.75M = 0.7 years once the run-rate lands.

Recommendation. "The plan reaches about $48.75M of EBITDA risk-weighted, enough to clear the $48M target by $0.75M, which is thin. I would sequence price and overtime first for quick, low-cost wins, run procurement in parallel because it is the largest lever, and treat scrap as the surest long-term gain. Before launch, confirm how the covenant treats the $9M cost to achieve. The risk to flag is price leakage: if realization on price drops from 70% to 40%, we lose $1.35M and fall below target."

Practice a separate profit-decline diagnosis

Consumer GoodsHard

Practice the profit reset

Case 4: Out of court or Chapter 11? Read the recovery waterfall

Prompt. Ridgeway Industrial has $20M of EBITDA and $190M of debt: a $90M first-lien loan, a $40M second-lien loan and $60M of unsecured debt and trade claims. It cannot refinance. Should it try an out-of-court deal or file for Chapter 11? Who is hurt by each path? (Original practice case, not A&M material.)

Concepts to name first. Debt of 190 / 20 = 9.5x EBITDA is a balance-sheet problem, not a liquidity blip: the business is worth less than it owes. In Chapter 11 the company usually keeps running as debtor in possession, filing starts an automatic stay on most collection actions, and the plan groups claims into classes that vote, with a class accepting at two-thirds in amount and more than half in number (US Courts). You do not need more law than that.

Structure. Value the business three ways: liquidation, going concern outside court, going concern through Chapter 11. Then walk the waterfall from the top: first lien, second lien, unsecured. Last, ask who holds out and what each class wants.

Data when you ask. Net liquidation proceeds are $55M. Going-concern value is 5.0x EBITDA, so $100M. If the company files, case assumptions are that customers leave and EBITDA falls to $18M (value 5.0 x 18 = $90M) and professional fees and process costs are $12M.

Read it. The second lien is the fulcrum: in the out-of-court case it is where value runs out, getting $10M of $40M. The first lien loses most from a bad process: 100% out of court against 86.7% in Chapter 11 is a $12M difference, and against liquidation (61.1%) it is $35M. So every class is better off with the out-of-court deal than with Chapter 11 on these numbers, because it avoids $12M of value lost.

The catch. Strict priority gives the unsecured creditors nothing, and they include suppliers the company needs. So a workable plan gives them a small, deliberate recovery. Suppose they receive $3M, 5% of $60M. The second lien then gets $7M, a 17.5% recovery, which still beats the 0% it gets in Chapter 11. The first lien is reinstated at $90M, which is 4.5x EBITDA (a sustainable leverage level, as an assumption). Check the sum: $90M + $7M + $3M = $100M.

Recommendation. "I would pursue an out-of-court exchange. It preserves $100M of value against $78M in Chapter 11, and each class does at least as well: first lien 100% versus 86.7%, second lien 17.5% versus 0%, unsecured 5% versus 0%. The plan is only as good as consent, so before anything else I would build the 13-week cash flow to see how long the company can negotiate, and I would line up a Chapter 11 filing as the credible alternative. The risks are a hold-out creditor and a supplier that stops shipping, so I would speak to critical vendors first." Candidate prep guides describe this tradeoff as liquidity versus solvency and payment priority, and our restructuring case interview guide goes further into the structure.

A&M's history gives the stakes context: Wikipedia records Bryan Marsal serving as chief restructuring officer at Lehman Brothers from September 2008, which shows the kind of operating role the firm takes on.

Case 5: Adjust a target's EBITDA in diligence

Prompt. A buyer is looking at Lakeshore Distribution, which reports $18.0M of EBITDA. The seller is asking 9.0x. You are the diligence team. What are the earnings really, and what should that do to the price? (Original practice case, not A&M material.)

A&M's Transaction Advisory Group describes its financial due diligence summer internship as reading income statements and balance sheets and turning data into conclusions, per its campus page. That is the skill this case trains.

Structure. Take reported EBITDA and test every adjustment against three questions: is it non-recurring, is it supported by documents, and does it belong in the period. Separate diligence adjustments from a run-rate adjustment for events that have not yet hit the numbers.

Data when you ask.

• The owner is paid $2.0M, and a market-rate manager would cost $0.8M.
• A one-time legal settlement of $0.9M sits in expenses.
• $3.0M of January shipments were booked as December revenue, at a 35% margin.
• $1.5M of software maintenance labor was capitalized instead of expensed.
• The largest customer ($14M revenue at a 25% contribution margin) has told the company it is moving to a competitor next year.

The math.

Check: 18.00 + 1.20 + 0.90 - 1.05 - 1.50 = 17.55, and 17.55 - 3.50 = 14.05.

What the price does. At the seller's 9.0x, $18.0M is $162.0M. The same multiple on diligence-adjusted EBITDA is 9.0 x 17.55 = $157.95M, and on run-rate EBITDA it is 9.0 x 14.05 = $126.45M, which is $35.55M below the ask. Diligence does not set the multiple. It proves what the multiple is applied to, and that is where the $35.55M comes from. Also ask for debt-like items and the working capital peg: if the average working capital over the last year was $22.0M and the closing figure is $19.0M, the $3.0M shortfall comes off the price.

Recommendation. "Reported EBITDA of $18.0M becomes $17.55M after diligence adjustments, and $14.05M on a run-rate basis once the lost customer is included. At the seller's multiple the value is $126.45M rather than $162.0M, a gap of $35.55M. I would accept the owner-pay and legal add-backs with documents, reverse the cut-off and capitalisation items, and present the customer loss separately so the buyer can decide how to price it. Next steps are customer contract review, an accrual and debt-like items review, and the working capital peg."

Practice a separate acquisition case

LogisticsMedium

Practice the acquisition

Case 6: Close a plant or not

Prompt. Delta Plastics has two plants. The CEO wants to know whether to close one, which one, and what the savings are. (Original practice case, not A&M material.)

Data when you ask.

Total volume is 45M + 25M = 70M units. Further facts: moving volume to Plant A needs another $4M of fixed cost (a second shift and maintenance), shipping Plant B's customers from Plant A adds $0.12 a unit of freight, severance is $18M, relocation is $12M, and Plant B's site sells for $6M.

Structure. Capacity first, because it decides which plant can close. Then run-rate cost, then one-time cost, then payback, then non-financial risks.

Capacity check. Closing Plant A would send 70M units to a plant with 50M of capacity, 20M units short, so it is infeasible without new capital. Closing Plant B sends 70M units to Plant A, which is 70 / 80 = 87.5% utilization. Only one closure is possible.

The math.

• Today: Plant A is $30M + 45M x $0.70 = $30M + $31.5M = $61.5M. Plant B is $21M + 25M x $0.85 = $21M + $21.25M = $42.25M. Total $103.75M.
• After closing B: fixed cost is $30M + $4M = $34M and variable cost is 70M x $0.70 = $49.0M, so Plant A costs $83.0M.
• Production saving is $103.75M - $83.0M = $20.75M. Less extra freight, 25M x $0.12 = $3.0M, the net saving is $17.75M a year.
• One-time cost is $18M + $12M = $30M, less $6M from the site sale, so $24M. Payback is $24M / $17.75M = about 1.35 years, or roughly 16 months.

Recommendation. "Close Plant B. Plant A cannot be closed because Plant B has 20M units too little capacity. The net saving is $17.75M a year against $24M of net one-time cost, a payback of about 16 months. The risk is that Plant A runs at 87.5% with no spare capacity, so a demand spike or a breakdown has nowhere to go. Before committing I would stress volume growth of 10%, which takes Plant A to 77M units, 96% utilization, and check customer contracts for sole-source clauses and for service levels on the Plant B lanes." Plant-footprint cases appear in the library as well.

Practice a separate plant consolidation case

ManufacturingMedium

Practice the plant case

Case 7: Read a SKU exhibit and cut the tail

Prompt. A pet-supplies distributor has $200M of revenue, 1,000 SKUs and $14M of EBITDA (7%). The CEO suspects complexity is eating profit. Use the exhibit and recommend what to do. (Original practice case, not A&M material.)

Exhibit 1: revenue and contribution margin by SKU tier.

Read the exhibit first, then ask. Describe it, quantify it, then state what it means. The top 100 SKUs are 10% of the range and 60% of revenue ($120M of $200M). The tail is 60% of the SKUs and 10% of revenue. Contribution is $38.4M from the top, $14.4M from the middle and $3.6M from the tail, $56.4M in total, so fixed costs are $56.4M - $14.0M = $42.4M.

The question that decides it. What does a SKU cost to keep, beyond its own variable cost? Suppose the answer is $9K a year per SKU in warehouse space, planning and obsolete stock (a case assumption). The tail's complexity cost is 600 x $9K = $5.4M against $3.6M of contribution, so the tail loses $1.8M a year.

Cut the worst 400. Tail revenue averages $20M / 600 = $33.3K a SKU, so 400 SKUs are about $13.3M of revenue, assumed average. Contribution lost is $13.3M x 18% = $2.4M, and complexity avoided is 400 x $9K = $3.6M. Net gain is $3.6M - $2.4M = +$1.2M, 8.6% of EBITDA. If 30% of the lost volume moves to top SKUs at a 32% margin, that recovers $13.3M x 30% x 32% = $1.28M, so the range is $1.2M to $2.5M.

Compare with a price move. One percent on the top tier is $120M x 1% = $1.2M, with full flow-through. It is the same size as the conservative SKU gain, with fewer customers touched.

Recommendation. "The tail is 60% of SKUs and 10% of revenue and loses about $1.8M once complexity is counted. Cutting the worst 400 adds $1.2M to $2.5M a year, up to about 18% of EBITDA. A 1% price move on the top 100 adds another $1.2M. I would do the SKU cut first because it is the most certain, protect SKUs that anchor a key customer, and test the price move in a few accounts. Next I would ask which customers buy the tail, because cutting a SKU that holds a large account can cost more than it saves."

Practice a separate cost-diagnosis case

ManufacturingMedium

Practice the cost case

Five short Alvarez & Marsal style questions to answer in two minutes

Reports list liquidity versus solvency, payment priority and fast operating fixes among the topics, so rehearse them as short answers as well as full cases. These are practice answers, not A&M answers.

1. The company has $6M of cash and burns $1.5M a week. What do you do on Monday? Runway is $6M / $1.5M = 4.0 weeks. First confirm the cash is unrestricted and the burn is a cash number, then build the 13-week view, then list levers by speed: collections, payment timing, capex pauses, asset sales.
2. Illiquid or insolvent? Illiquid: the business is worth more than it owes but cannot pay on time, so you need bridge liquidity. Insolvent: liabilities exceed what the business is worth, so you need to change the capital structure. Case 4 is the second kind.
3. A supplier you cannot replace in two weeks is owed $2M and threatens to stop shipping. What do you pay? Do not pay everyone evenly. Rank by what stops operations if unpaid, agree a partial payment plan with the critical vendor tied to continued shipment, and ask counsel which obligations carry special treatment before you decide.
4. EBITDA rose $4M but cash fell. Why? Cash is not EBITDA. Inventory building by $6M, slower collections, capex or interest can all absorb it. Reconcile the two with a cash-to-EBITDA bridge, the supporting schedule a 13-week model uses (Wall Street Prep).
5. What goes in a 13-week cash flow and what does not? Cash receipts and cash disbursements by week, opening and closing cash, and a line for revolver draws against a minimum balance. Not net income, and not accruals. Use the direct method.

How many weeks of cash does a company have, and how do you extend them?

Weeks of cash is cash above the minimum balance divided by the weekly burn, and you extend it lever by lever. This warm-up extends short question 1 and is not one of the seven cases. (Original practice case, not A&M material.)

Prompt. Pinewood Furniture, a 40-showroom retailer, has $12.0M of cash, a lender that requires at least $3.0M at all times, and sales that have fallen for two years. How long does it have, and how do you stretch it?

Outflows are 2.6 + 1.6 + 0.7 + 0.8 + 0.3 = $6.0M, so the burn is 6.0 - 4.5 = $1.5M a week. Cash hits zero in 12.0 / 1.5 = 8.0 weeks, but the floor binds first: (12.0 - 3.0) / 1.5 = 6.0 weeks. Cash is exactly $3.0M after week 6, so the floor breaks in week 7.

Now the levers. Case assumptions: inventory purchases can fall 25%, other costs 25%, and $15.0M of inventory at cost is 20% slow-moving and sells at 80% of cost.

Check the pieces: 25% of $2.6M is $0.65M, 25% of $0.8M is $0.20M, and 20% of $15.0M is $3.0M, which sells for 0.8 x 3.0 = $2.4M. Purchases after the cut are $1.95M a week, and seven more days to pay is one extra week, so $1.95M stays in the bank once. Timing matters: each week a lever is late costs $0.85M, about 1.3 weeks of runway at the new burn.

Stakeholders, in this order. Lender: share the 13-week forecast and ask for a waiver early. Suppliers: the largest first, for the 7 days. Landlords: rent deferrals on the weakest showrooms, owed later and so not counted above. Employees: a clear message, since payroll is the largest line.

Board-style recommendation. "Pinewood has 6 weeks to its cash floor. Approve the purchase cut, the cost trim and the clearance sale now, and authorize talks with the lender and top suppliers this week. That gives about 20 weeks, enough to finish a showroom review. The risk is that fewer purchases hurt sales, so review receipts weekly."

How to turn the seven cases into a practice week

Reading a solution is not the same as producing one. Cover the answer, give yourself two minutes to structure and then compare. Then fix the skill that wobbled with a graded rep.

• Structure came out generic: re-run the restructuring case interview guide and the profitability framework, then redo the structure drill.
• The math ran slow: work case interview math practice until weekly cash tables and days-of-working-capital arithmetic take under two minutes.
• Cost and operations cases felt thin: the cost reduction case guide and the operations case guide cover the levers behind Cases 3, 6 and 7.
• Diligence felt unfamiliar: read the M&A case framework and the private equity case guide before Case 5.
• Recommendations had no number: work case interview synthesis and force a figure and a risk into every answer.
• Fit round: A&M cases come with fit questions in the same interview, so build stories with behavioral interview practice.

For the surrounding pieces of an A&M application, use the Alvarez and Marsal case interview guide for process, the Alvarez and Marsal consulting overview for practices, the salary guide for pay by level, the internship guide for early careers, and the consulting resume guide for the screen before the case. If you are also looking at other turnaround firms, the FTI Consulting guide and the AlixPartners guide cover them.

Prep plans for McKinsey, BCG, Bain, Deloitte, Accenture, EY-Parthenon, Kearney, Oliver Wyman, Roland Berger, L.E.K., OC&C, Strategy&, Simon-Kucher, Arthur D. Little, Capital One and your target firm. Choose your firm in the plan builder.

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1

Learn the format

17 steps

• Learn how to caseGuided learning · 35 min
• The Case Interview MethodLesson · 8 min
• Profitability & Turnaround: AfrihealSkill drill · 5 min
• Profitability & Turnaround: Berty BankSkill drill · 5 min

Sources and further reading (checked November 5, 2026)

• A&M Transaction Advisory Group, campus recruiting (stages, financial due diligence internship description): am-globaltag.com/join-us/campus-recruiting
• Alvarez and Marsal, Wikipedia (founding, services, Lehman Brothers role): en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alvarez_and_Marsal
• CaseBasix, Alvarez & Marsal case interview (rounds, case types, math skills; vendor guide): casebasix.com/pages/alvarez-marsal-case-interview
• MBB Prep, Alvarez & Marsal interviews (round format, turnaround focus, July 5, 2026; vendor guide): mbbprep.com/blog/alvarez-and-marsal
• PrepLounge, A&M interview process thread (coach replies, June 2020): preplounge.com/consulting-forum/alvarez-marsal-interview-process-7042
• PrepLounge, written case presentation with A&M (coach reply, July 2018): preplounge.com/de/consulting-forum/written-case-presentation-with-alvarez-and-marsal-2074
• Wall Street Prep, 13-week cash flow model (direct method, borrowing base, cash-to-EBITDA reconciliation): wallstreetprep.com/knowledge/demystifying-the-13-week-cash-flow-model-in-excel
• US Courts, Chapter 11 bankruptcy basics (debtor in possession, automatic stay, class voting): uscourts.gov/court-programs/bankruptcy/bankruptcy-basics/chapter-11-bankruptcy-basics
• Corporate Finance Institute, cash conversion cycle (DIO + DSO - DPO): corporatefinanceinstitute.com/resources/accounting/cash-conversion-cycle
• A&M PEPI, pre-acquisition due diligence (operational diligence, EBITDA adjustments, working capital risks): alvarezandmarsal-pepi.com/services/pre-acquisition-due-diligence
• A&M Consumer and Retail Group (consumer products and retail focus, grow revenue or reduce costs): alvarezandmarsal-crg.com
• Case Prep, Alvarez & Marsal case interview examples (practice group focus as reported by a prep site; vendor guide): case-prep.com/blogs/alvarez-marsal-case-interview-examples
• Not opened: A&M's main-site service pages, careers and thought-leadership pages returned an access-denied error to our automated checks on November 5, 2026, so no claim above rests on them. Confirm process details with your recruiter.