Finance, Accounting and Audit
Budgeting and Cost Control
Corporate Credit Analysis: Forecasting, Formulation and Analysis
Forming a credit view on a borrower, and saying what would have to be true for it to be wrong.
- Duration
- 5 days
- Contact hours
- 30
- Level
- Intermediate
- Fee from
- On enquiry
Overview
Credit analysis fails when it describes a borrower rather than deciding about one. Ratios are calculated, a rating is produced, and nothing in the paper says what would change the answer. The useful version carries a forecast with the two or three assumptions the credit actually depends on, a view on whether cash will service the debt through a downturn, and a structure that leaves the lender a position if it does not. This week works through the statements, the forecast, the structure and the credit paper itself, on real borrowers.
Who should attend
Credit analysts and relationship managers in banks and finance houses, credit committee members, and treasury and finance staff assessing counterparties.
What you will be able to do
- Rebuild a borrower's statements onto a comparable basis before analysing them.
- Forecast cash available for debt service, and identify what the forecast depends on.
- Assess a borrower's position in its industry rather than in isolation.
- Structure a facility so the lender has a position if the forecast fails.
- Write a credit paper that states a decision and the conditions attached to it.
How it is taught
Short input, then work, across 5 days of roughly 6 teaching hours each. Exercises run on situations delegates bring rather than on a case study written for a different organisation. Cohorts are capped so that everybody is asked something.
Available as classroom, live online, in house.
Programme outline
Day 1
Reading the statements
- Normalising for policy choices, one offs and related party dealings
- Quality of earnings against reported profit
- Working capital as both a source and a consumer of cash
- Off balance sheet obligations and contingent exposure
Day 2
Cash and debt capacity
- Cash available for debt service, built from the statements
- Leverage and coverage, and what each one misses
- Capital expenditure that cannot be deferred
- Seasonality, and the peak funding need
Day 3
Business and industry risk
- Position in the industry, and the pressure on margin
- Customer and supplier concentration
- Management, ownership and succession
- Country, currency and regulatory exposure
Day 4
Forecasting and sensitivity
- A base case somebody is prepared to defend
- The two or three assumptions the credit rests on
- A downside that is severe rather than polite
- The point at which the facility stops working
Day 5
Structure and the paper
- Covenants tied to the risks actually identified
- Security, ranking, and what it is worth in a default
- Pricing against the risk taken
- A paper that recommends rather than describes
What you leave with
- A reworked financial analysis of one real borrower.
- A debt service forecast with the sensitivities that break it identified.
- A credit paper and proposed structure, with covenants tied to the risks found.
Dates and fees
| Dates | Location | Format | Fee |
|---|---|---|---|
| 23 to 27 November 2026 | Dar es Salaam, Tanzania | Classroom | US$1,500 |
| 30 November 2026 to 4 December 2026 | Windhoek, Namibia | Classroom | R15,000 |
| 7 to 11 December 2026 | Dubai, United Arab Emirates | Classroom | US$1,500 |
| 14 to 18 December 2026 | Cape Town, South Africa | Classroom | R15,000 |
Fees are per delegate and cover tuition, all programme materials and the certificate. Travel, accommodation and visas are arranged by the delegate. Registration closes two weeks before a programme starts.
Certificate
A GATI certificate recording what was attended, issued after the programme has run and attendance has been taken. Attending at least 80 per cent of the days earns a certificate of completion; attending less earns a certificate of attendance stating exactly what was attended. Every certificate carries a code that anybody can check against GATI's own record.
It records participation. and GATI does not claim one it does not hold.