Question of the day
2026-09-04
Is accounts payable part of 'debt' in the enterprise value bridge? Explain.
Answer it out loud first — like you would in the room. Then check yourself:
Reveal the model answer
Model answer
No. Accounts payable is an operating liability - it funds the working-capital cycle and is already captured in the operating cash flows / EBITDA you're valuing. Debt in the bridge means FINANCING liabilities that carry an explicit return to capital providers (interest-bearing borrowings, leases). Including AP would double-count it against operations and wrongly inflate EV. The clean test: would this liability appear in the financing section and require a return to a lender? AP does not.
Want 10 of these a day, scheduled so they stick?
A free account gets you Daily 10 — ten questions a day from the full 2,300+ bank, spaced-repetition scheduled. No credit card.
Tomorrow's question, in your inbox.
One real IB interview question every morning — free, one-click unsubscribe, nothing else ever.