5-day M&A simulation · Cohort 01 opens Friday

Spend five days as an investment banking analyst.

A simulated M&A deal, run from a Paris boutique. You work a fictional mandate from kickoff to pitch — DCF, buyer memo, pitch deck, client call — and leave with a portfolio you can show on applications.

Reserve your seat — €19 →
Refundable · until cohort start
Exhibit A · The Desk

The same surface a first-year actually opens at 09:00.

Live captureDay 1 · 09:42 CET
Inbox 09:42 CET · Sarah Chen, VPWorkbook TechNova_DCF_v3.xlsx · Sheet 1/4Data room 14 files · Last sync 09:40
01 · Five days

A locked structure. Same cadence as a real desk.

You work a fictional M&A mandate for TechNova, a mid-sized French SaaS company. Emails arrive from your VP. Deliverables have deadlines. The AI grader reads your work against the same rubric Meridian Partners uses internally.

Day 01 Mon

Onboarding & Company Profile

Welcome email from Sarah Chen, VP. Data room drops. You skim the CIM, read the cap table, then write a one-page company profile — positioning, financials, why it's being sold. AI grades against rubric, returns notes the same day.

Deliverable: 1-page Company Profile
PROFILE — TECHNOVA
Mid-market French SaaS · €42M ARR
Day 02 Tue

Valuation

Half-filled Excel template lands in your inbox — financials, operating assumptions, a WACC scaffold. Your job: finish the DCF, build the comparable companies set, triangulate. Supporting video walkthrough if you're stuck.

Deliverable: DCF + Comps workbook
DCF_V3 · SHEET 1/4
€M
24A
25E
26E
27E
Rev
42.1
51.8
63.4
76.1
EBIT
8.4
11.9
15.2
19.8
FCF
4.9
7.2
9.2
12.3
Day 03 Wed

Buyer Universe

Memo on three potential buyers — one strategic, one PE sponsor, one competitor. You rank them on strategic fit, financial capacity, and close probability. Defend your top pick in two paragraphs.

Deliverable: Ranked buyer memo
BUYER UNIVERSE — RANKED
Strategic — AcquireCo91%
PE — Nordic Capital74%
Competitor — Linea SA52%
PE — Bridgepath48%
Day 04 Thu

Pitch Deck

Six slides in Google Slides recommending a buyer to TechNova's CEO. Not a course on deck design — a recommendation with defendable logic, clean exhibits, and no slide-filler. Your VP has seen a thousand of these. Yours needs to stand up.

Deliverable: 6-slide recommendation deck
DECK — RECOMMENDATION
Day 05 Fri

Client Call & Final Memo

Pre-recorded client call with the CEO. She pushes back on your valuation and your buyer ranking. You respond in writing, then synthesize the week into a final memo. You get a personalized AI debrief: strengths, gaps, whether IB is likely to fit.

Deliverable: Final memo + personal debrief
CALL — CEO TECHNOVA · 18:32
00:0018:32
02 · What you keep

Three artifacts you can put on an application tomorrow.

01 · Portfolio

A real deal portfolio PDF

Profile, DCF, buyer memo, pitch deck, final memo — bound together. The thing an admissions officer or internship lead can read in ten minutes and actually learn something about you.

PDF · 22 pp
02 · Credential

Signed completion certificate

Issued by Meridian Desk, citing the fictional deal you worked, your role, and your rubric score. Verifiable at a public URL. Meant to sit on a LinkedIn profile, not a fridge.

VERIFIABLE
MD
Summer Analyst — TechNova
COHORT 01 · SCORE 87/100
03 · Debrief

An honest fit assessment

Personalized AI debrief at the end of the week — where you were strong, where you wobbled, and whether IB is likely to be a career you'd enjoy. Blunt by design. No trophy.

Valuation rigorSTRONG
Buyer framingOK
Deck narrativeWORK
Likely fitHIGH
04 — Built by people who've done it

Two students. Real bankers in the loop.

We're students building Meridian Desk from Paris. The deal scenarios, rubrics, and email scripts are drafted with input from analysts and associates at leading European and US investment banks.

FOUNDERS: ALEX T. & ALEX F.
04 · FAQ

Questions we actually get.

No. If you can read a spreadsheet and write a clear paragraph, you can do this. The Excel template comes half-filled, and the Analyst Handbook covers every concept you'll need. Most users have never built a DCF before day 2.
Budget two to three hours per day, Monday through Friday. Around 10–12 hours total. Deliverables are due the following morning, so you can shift work to evenings if your schedule requires it.
No. TechNova is a fictional mid-market French SaaS company we built specifically for this simulation. The financials, cap table, and data room are internally consistent and modeled on comparable real-world assets — but the company doesn't exist, and no real deal is at stake.
An AI grader reads your uploads against a rubric we built around how Meridian Partners analysts are actually reviewed. You get structured feedback within hours. If you get stuck, you can email us — we respond within four hours during the cohort.
It gives you a portfolio you can actually show, a credential that's verifiable, and enough exposure to know whether to keep applying. It doesn't guarantee anything. What it guarantees is that you won't walk into a recruiter conversation pretending to know what the job is.
Email us and we refund you in full. That's the point — if you discover IB isn't for you, the 19€ has done its job. Saving yourself four years of the wrong degree is a good trade.
06 — Reserve your seat

Cohort 01 is filling.

Leave your details. We'll email you within 48 hours to confirm your cohort date.

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