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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031How do you determine whether a company is good for credit investing, quantitatively and qualitatively?Credit analysis and ratingsIntermediatesuperdayTD SecuritiesCredit · New York · 2026
Say this
Quantitatively, I want to know whether the cash flow covers the debt through a downturn, not just today — leverage, coverage, free cash flow conversion and the maturity wall. Qualitatively, I want to know whether the business is durable and whether management and the owner will behave. The qualitative side is what actually distinguishes credits at similar leverage.
Then walk it
1. The quantitative core: net debt to EBITDA, EBITDA to interest, free cash flow to debt, and the maturity schedule against available liquidity. Then the same four in a stress case — revenue down 20 percent, margin down 300 basis points — because credit is downside analysis.
2. Cash conversion matters more than the EBITDA multiple. Two businesses at 4 times leverage, one converting 70 percent of EBITDA to free cash flow and one converting 20 percent because of working capital and capex, are not the same credit.
3. Then asset coverage and recovery: what is the collateral, what would it fetch in a liquidation or a going-concern sale, and where does my claim sit relative to secured debt and structurally senior subsidiary obligations.
4. The qualitative half starts with business durability: contracted or recurring revenue, switching costs, pricing power, customer concentration, and whether demand is cyclical or secularly declining. A structurally declining business at 3 times leverage can be a worse credit than a growing one at 5.
5. Then the people and the owner. Financial policy, track record through the last downturn, willingness to support the business with equity, and for a sponsor-owned company its history on aggressive liability management. Whether your lender group has been primed before is genuinely predictive.
6. And the honest limitation: none of this tells you about idiosyncratic fraud or a regulatory shock. That is what position sizing and diversification are for.
Where candidates lose it
Giving a ratio list and calling the qualitative half 'good management'. Say what you would look at to judge management — leverage track record, behaviour in the last downturn, prior liability management exercises — because that is checkable and 'good management' is not.
Expect next
- What stress case would you run?
- How do you judge financial policy in practice?
- Two companies at the same leverage — what makes one a better credit?
Reported by candidates at TD Securities (Credit, 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