Managing Corporate Debt and Credit Risk Training Course

Course overview

Debt is not something a company simply carries; it is something a treasury function shapes on purpose, one instrument and one maturity at a time. This course looks at corporate debt and credit risk from the seat of the issuer, the borrower deciding how much leverage to take on, which instruments to raise it through, and when to refinance before a maturity wall becomes a problem. It treats the balance sheet as a set of choices with consequences for the cost of capital, for rating headroom, and for how much room management keeps when conditions tighten.

It is written for treasurers, CFOs, and the finance analysts who sit alongside them, the people who negotiate covenants, model the weighted average cost of capital, and answer to a board when refinancing risk rises. Mastering this material changes how those teams argue for a capital structure: instead of defending decisions after the fact, they can price the trade-offs between debt and equity, quantify default probability on their own name, and hold a defensible view of how much fixed obligation the business should carry through a cycle.

The stakes for borrowers

For a borrower, the cost of getting debt wrong is rarely a single dramatic event; it is a slow tightening of options. A stretched maturity profile forces refinancing into a weak market, a slipped covenant hands lenders leverage in a renegotiation, and a downgrade lifts the coupon on every future issue. Treasury teams that understand these mechanics manage the maturity ladder, the rating narrative, and the covenant package as one connected problem rather than three separate ones.

Debt decisions also sit close to the day-to-day cash position, which is why this course reads naturally alongside Liquidity and Working Capital Management, where the short-term funding and cash-conversion side of the same balance sheet is worked through in detail. Seen together, the long-term financing structure and the near-term liquidity buffer are two ends of one funding strategy, and a treasurer who understands both can defend the capital structure to a board and a rating committee with the same set of numbers.

Course objectives

By the end of the course, participants will be able to:

• Gear the balance sheet to a level the business can carry.
• Borrow through term loans, revolving credit facilities, or bonds.
• Price the marginal cost of new borrowing before it is committed.
• Rate the issuer's own credit standing before a lender does.
• Score the issuer's default risk with the models lenders use.
• Stagger maturities so no single year carries too many.
• Amend or exchange existing debt before the option narrows.
• Pledge collateral only where it buys back real flexibility.
• Swap rate and credit exposure at a cost the board accepts.
• Sustain a green funding claim the disclosure can support.

Course outline

Unit 1: Fundamentals of Corporate Debt

• A choice between commercial paper and private placements.
• Rollover exposure in the short-term versus long-term mix.
• After-tax cost of debt in weighted average cost of capital.
• The point at which leverage stops funding growth.

Unit 2: Capital Structure and Debt Strategy

• The tax shield weighed against financial distress costs.
• Modigliani-Miller, trade-off, and pecking-order views.
• A borrower that geared up and one that stayed conservative.
• Higher return on equity against thinner interest cover.

Unit 3: Credit Risk Assessment and Analysis

• Funds-from-operations to debt and free-cash-flow measures.
• Industry position and management set against the ratios.
• Moody's, S&P, and Fitch, and the cost of a single notch.
• The treasury's own read of its file before the committee.

Unit 4: Credit Risk Models and Monitoring

• Probability of default and loss given default, run in-house.
• Altman Z-score and Merton distance-to-default estimates.
• Exposure at default inside a lender's concentrated book.
• Tracking the ratio that trips a covenant first each month.

Unit 5: Managing Debt and Refinancing Risks

• Spacing the maturity ladder away from a maturity wall.
• Pre-funding a rollover before the market window closes.
• Amend-and-extend, exchanges, and lender negotiation.
• Funding decisions that narrowed a borrower's options.

Unit 6: Risk Mitigation and Governance

• Hedging with interest-rate swaps and credit default swaps.
• Covenants, collateral, and the price of refusing one.
• The limit a treasury committee sets and what it approves.
• A borrower that let leverage build unchecked for years.

Unit 7: Future of Debt and Credit Risk Management

• Rate cycle and the swing from banks to bond markets.
• Green bonds and sustainability-linked loans, at what price.
• What an automated credit model cannot see in an issuer.
• The funding sensitivity of a debt profile to a rate move.

How the course is delivered

The course mirrors the decisions a treasury team makes through the year, moving through worked examples of capital-structure decisions, walkthroughs of documented refinancing cases, and discussion of credit-risk scenarios so each concept is tied to a decision a borrower actually faces.

Who should attend

This course is aimed at those who raise and manage corporate debt:

• Corporate treasurers and finance managers
• CFOs and finance directors shaping capital structure
• Credit-risk and treasury analysts
• Corporate-finance and FP&A professionals
• Investor-relations staff supporting debt strategy
• Managers overseeing refinancing and covenants

About EuroQuest International Training

With roots going back to 2015, EuroQuest International Training now maintains a catalog of over a thousand courses. The organization is based in Bratislava and convenes sessions in Istanbul, London, Dubai, Geneva, Vienna, Paris, and Barcelona, having trained in excess of fifteen thousand professionals.

Frequently asked questions

Does the course provide a certificate?

Yes. Those who complete the sessions are presented with the EuroQuest International Training Certificate of Completion, recording the sessions attended. It attests to attendance and carries no treasury or credit-risk certification.

Is this course aimed at borrowers or lenders?

It is written for the borrower, the issuer or treasury side that raises and services corporate debt, so the emphasis is on capital structure, refinancing, and managing the company's own credit standing. The lender's perspective is covered separately in our credit-analysis course. Content is educational and does not amount to financial, credit, or legal advice for a specific borrower or transaction.

Are credit-rating models explained?

Yes. The course explains how agency ratings are assigned and how quantitative models estimate probability of default and loss given default, so a treasury team can anticipate how its own name is scored. The focus is on reading and using these outputs rather than certifying anyone as a rating analyst.

Related courses

Finance teams managing the balance sheet regularly take related EuroQuest courses:

• Credit Analysis and Lending Strategies - the lender-side mirror of this course, showing how banks assess the borrowers you represent.
• Corporate Finance and Capital Budgeting - connects financing decisions to how capital is allocated across projects.
• Foreign Exchange Markets and Currency Risk Management - covers the currency exposure that comes with cross-border debt.
• Banking and Financial Institution Management - explains how the institutions on the other side of your debt are run.

Register for this course

Take control of the debt on your balance sheet. Reserve a place to strengthen how your team shapes capital structure, prices credit risk, and plans refinancing with confidence.