What's The Big Deal?
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
11 episodes
Can Claude Replace Investment Bankers? We Graded the Output.
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. ...
Claude for Finance: Building a Live Merger Model with AI
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 ...
Nvidia Under Pressure: Is the AI Chip Monopoly Finally Cracking?
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 wh...
How AI Data Centres Are Funded — And What Happens When the Money Stops
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 committ...
Private Equity: Leveraged Buyouts Explained (How to Analyze Deals Like a Pro)
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...
How Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan & Morgan Stanley Make Billions (Explained)
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...
OpenAI vs. Anthropic Explained: Business Models, Valuations & IPO Breakdown
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...
Q1 2026: A Record-Breaking M&A Quarter — Inside the Unilever $45BN Deal
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, the...
SpaceX to File for Biggest IPO of All-Time ($1.75 Trillion Valuation)
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 ...
Will AI Replace Wall Street Investment Banking Jobs?
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 wha...
The Truth Behind Paramount's $110 Billion Battle for Warner Bros. Discovery (Winners & Losers)
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 de...