The Situation
A soft trailing quarter had compressed EBITDA enough to put the company within striking distance of its leverage and fixed-charge covenants. The lender was scheduled for the annual review. Without a coordinated submission, the credit committee was going to draw its own conclusions — and the conversation was going to start in a place the company didn’t want it to.
The CFO needed a complete, credible package on the bank’s desk before the review, framing the situation, the math, and the path forward in the lender’s own analytical language.
What CEI did
Assembled the full lender submission: trailing financials, EBITDA reconciliation, covenant compliance worksheet, forward forecast with sensitivity ranges, and the supporting analytical schedules the bank’s credit team would request.
Computed each financial covenant against trailing-twelve-months actuals and the forward forecast, showed headroom or breach explicitly, with the operating performance required to maintain compliance.
Wrote the management discussion section: what drove the soft quarter, what specific operating actions were in motion, and what the recovery trajectory looked like, anchored in the forecast, not in narrative.
Pre-built the bank’s likely follow-up questions and put the answers and supporting math directly in the submission, so the credit committee didn’t have to ask for them.
Coordinated
Single Lender Submission
Quantified
Covenant Headroom by Quarter
Proactive
Bank Q&A Preempted
The annual review ran as a conversation about strategy and operating cadence rather than a defensive walk through the financials. The bank credit committee got the package they needed, on the timeline they needed, in the format they used — and the relationship strengthened through a soft quarter instead of straining.
In Their Words
“We didn’t want our lender to find out what was going on by reading the financials. CEI made sure they got our story first — in their language.”
— CFO | Confidential PE-Backed Client