Accept the missionOne clear finance objective and a short completion target.
Learning path 03 · Foundation to day-one analyst
Levels 1–5 live · Analyst level begins at Level 6Leveraged Finance
Start with the leveraged-finance base needed for university recruitment and technical interviews, then continue within the same pathway into the real day-to-day work of an analyst. Levels 1–5 cover credit, debt instruments, leverage, cash flow, covenants, LBO mechanics and lender returns; Level 6 begins transaction execution, from the first deal screen through modelling, approval, documentation, funding and monitoring.
40 applied underwriting questions · Worked answer frameworks · Practical follow-ups
£35per month for all courses · payments opening later
Sign in to unlock Protect your livesThree hearts, instant feedback and no passive video watching.
Build speed + comboCorrect answers inside 10 seconds earn bonus XP; careful answers remain available after zero.
Clear the checkpointEarn XP, open reward chests and unlock the next mission.
Your route through the course
Know what comes next.
Each mission combines concise teaching, visual deal mechanics and applied challenges. Clear the checkpoint to earn XP, preserve your streak and unlock the next level.
0 of 5 lessons passed · 0% complete0/126 course XP
Section 1 · 14 min
LockedThe leveraged-finance underwriting lens
Move from describing leverage to forming a defensible view on business quality, cash generation and repayment risk.
Private equity owns the company; leveraged finance and private credit fund it.A pure leveraged-finance bank originates, underwrites and syndicates.Private credit usually negotiates directly and intends to hold the loan.The debt belongs to the company—not the private-equity fund.Build the £100m purchase price.Lenders don’t own the business.An RCF may also be called an SSRCF; term facilities fund the acquisition and growth.Sponsor-backed term debt is commonly bullet or lightly amortising.Debt paydown can build equity value.Start with the business before calculating leverage.Open all five forces: credit protects the downside; equity underwrites the upside.Give a credit view, not a list of ratios.
Section 2 · 16 min
LockedDebt instruments and capital-structure design
Select and compare RCFs, TLAs, TLBs, unitranche, high-yield bonds and acquisition facilities using risk, flexibility and execution criteria.
Ranking determines who gets paid first.Security improves recovery—not certainty.Calculate gross leverage by layer.Ranking also drives control.Don’t compare margins without comparing position.TLA, TLB and unitranche solve different problems.CAF and ACF usually describe the same buy-and-build tool.More EBITDA can create value—but only if the acquisition economics hold.Recommend a structure and defend the trade-off.
Section 3 · 22 min
LockedDebt capacity, cash flow and downside modelling
Size debt from sustainable cash flow, model cash and PIK interest, and distinguish operating headroom from covenant headroom.
Debt capacity is constrained by the weakest test.Start with leverage, then challenge it.A 20% EBITDA decline changes the answer.Covenants are early-warning tripwires.Headroom isn’t the same as capacity.An EBITDA add-back reverses a cost to show a different view of earnings.A reasonable adjustment can improve comparability without becoming ‘real’ earnings.Pro forma EBITDA answers an ‘as if’ question—not a liquidity question.Bridge management-adjusted EBITDA to lender-underwritten earnings and cash.Only after selecting underwritten EBITDA should you bridge to cash.Model cash interest, PIK and base-rate exposure separately.State the size, constraint and downside consequence.
✦
Reward chest30 base XP milestone
Section 4 · 17 min
LockedLBO mechanics, covenants and creditor control
Build sources and uses, trace debt repayment and understand how the SFA and ICA control leverage, value leakage and enforcement.
Every pound of use needs a source.The equity cheque is the balancing figure.EBITDA doesn’t repay debt by itself.Mandatory and optional repayment behave differently.A balancing model can still be wrong.The SFA turns the approved credit into enforceable terms.The threshold alone doesn't tell you the protection.The ICA determines who controls a default.Explain the protection and the loophole.
Section 5 · 18 min
LockedLBO returns and the credit-committee decision
Connect deleveraging to sponsor returns, then deliver a clear approve or decline recommendation with conditions and downside protections.
Equity receives value after debt.MOIC—or MOM—measures money, but ignores time.Separate operating delivery from financial engineering.The lender underwrites repayment, not sponsor upside.An output is only the mathematical result of its assumptions.MOIC / MOM ignores time; IRR discounts the timing of cash flows.A recommendation tells credit committee exactly what exposure it is being asked to approve.Conditions make an acceptable risk enforceable; they cannot rescue a bad credit.This is what a defensible recommendation sounds like.Know what would change the recommendation.
LEVEL 6 GATEWAYIn development
Day-one analyst execution starts here.
Levels 1–5 are the technical and credit foundation. From Level 6, the same course follows a live-style transaction through the work an analyst performs from first look to post-funding monitoring.
Sign in and complete Finance Foundations to unlock this pathway.