Debt Capital Markets interview preparation

Bond mechanics, duration, credit spreads, ratings, primary issuance, syndicated loans, structured credit, covenants and liability management, plus the Indian debt market. Every question is either traced to a named firm from a public candidate report, or tagged at desk level when we could not trace it.

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Question bank

100 questions, mapped to the firms that asked them

Questions: 100
Traced to a firm: 45
Firms: 26
Updated: September 2026

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033What specific line items on the financial statements would you look at when evaluating creditworthiness?Credit analysis and ratingsIntermediatetechnicalRBC Capital MarketsCorporate Banking · New York · 2026
Say this
I would go line by line with cash in mind. On the income statement: revenue trend, gross margin, EBIT and interest expense. On the cash flow statement: cash from operations, capex and the working capital swings. On the balance sheet: total debt by maturity, cash, and the off-balance-sheet items sitting in the notes.
Then walk it
1. Income statement: revenue growth and its stability, gross margin as the read on pricing power, EBIT, and interest expense. Interest expense divided by average debt gives you the effective rate, which is a fast check on whether the stated cost of debt is real.
2. Cash flow statement is where I spend most time, because it is the hardest to dress up. Cash from operations versus EBITDA tells you the conversion rate. Working capital swings tell you whether growth consumes cash. Capex split between maintenance and growth tells you what is discretionary in a downturn.
3. Balance sheet: debt by instrument and maturity, not just the total. Cash and undrawn revolver capacity, because liquidity kills companies before leverage does. Then receivables and inventory days against history, since a deterioration there is an early warning.
4. The notes are where the real work is: operating and finance lease obligations, pension deficits, contingent liabilities, guarantees, receivables factoring and supply chain finance programmes, and the debt maturity table. Any of these can add a turn of effective leverage.
5. Then the structural question the statements only half answer: which entity in the group actually owes the debt, and where do the assets and cash sit. Consolidated leverage of 3 times can hide a holdco that is structurally subordinated to everything.
6. One quick number to illustrate: a retailer with 500 million of lease obligations and 300 million of drawn debt has effective leverage that is roughly double what the debt line suggests, and pre-IFRS 16 that was entirely invisible on the face of the balance sheet.
Where candidates lose it
Naming only the debt line and EBITDA. The answer that impresses a corporate banking interviewer goes to the notes — leases, pensions, factoring, guarantees — and then asks which legal entity owes the money. That is the difference between a ratio and a credit view.
Expect next
- How would you adjust EBITDA and debt for leases?
- What would you check in the notes first?
- How do you spot receivables factoring?
Reported by candidates at RBC Capital Markets (Corporate Banking, New York, 2026). Source: Wall Street Oasis.

Firm tags come from public, anonymous candidate reports on Wall Street Oasis: strong signal, not sworn testimony. Firms are named as the places a question was reported, not as partners of Fin Maverick. Answers are written for this page to show how to think out loud; they are not scripts to recite.

100 questions, mapped to the firms that asked them

Say this

Then walk it

Where candidates lose it

Expect next