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// ← EVERY SEATTHE FRONT LINE

Ground floor · The hall

Corporate Coverage Banker

Owns the bank's relationship with a large corporate or institutional client and orchestrates everything the bank sells into it.

BY MICHAEL SHANG · SIXTEEN YEARS IN COMMERCIAL BANKING · UPDATED

// 01 — WHAT A CORPORATE COVERAGE BANKER DOES

Fewer clients, larger and slower: a listed company or a large private group, banked by a club of lenders rather than one, on facilities negotiated line by line. The work is as much internal as external — assembling markets, transaction banking, and structured or project finance around a client whose treasurer already knows exactly what a facility should cost.

// 02 — WHO ARRIVES HERE

Rarely a first seat. Most arrive from commercial banking, from a structuring or credit team, or from a corporate finance background.

// 03 — WHAT THE INTERVIEW ASKS

These are the shapes the round takes, not a question bank — banks phrase them differently and the wording is never the point.

  1. 01Walk me through how you would prepare for a first meeting with a treasurer.
  2. 02Why would this company use us rather than the three banks it already has?
  3. 03How does a syndicated facility differ from a bilateral one, and why does that matter to us?
  4. 04The client wants a covenant removed. Talk me through it.
  5. 05Where does the bank actually make money on a relationship like this?
  6. 06Tell me about a time you coordinated people who did not report to you.

What the panel is listening for. Whether you can hold a whole institution's economics in view — not one facility's margin — and still be specific about what you would do on Monday.

Practise the round in the credit and lending quiz: five questions these panels ask, with the senior interviewer's read on every answer.

Take the quiz →

// 04 — WHY CREDIT PAYS IN THIS SEAT

Large exposures concentrate risk rather than removing it; the read is the same read, with more zeroes and a committee that will ask harder questions about downside.

The files are larger and the documents longer, but a committee asks the same questions about a corporate client as about a trading business: where the cash comes from, what happens if the largest customer leaves, and whether the security is worth what the paper says.

START HERE · Issue 07 — a listed retailer in a four-bank club

// 05 — A DAY IN THE SEAT

  1. 07:30The overnight: results, a ratings action, a headline about a client — read before the client's treasurer mentions it.
  2. 09:00An internal call assembling the product partners — markets, transaction banking, structured finance — around one client's refinancing.
  3. 11:00The treasurer meeting: the facility they want, the price they think it costs, and what the other three banks have already offered.
  4. 13:00The credit paper with the analyst: the club facility, the covenant the client wants softened, and what the committee will ask.
  5. 15:00The agent bank's call on a waiver request — one vote among several, and the other banks' positions to read.
  6. 17:00The pipeline and the wallet: which of the bank's products this client actually pays for, and which it is only being shown.

The shape of a day, not a rota — banks and books differ. A relationship manager's day is on what a commercial banker does.

// 06 — WHAT THE FIRST YEAR TESTS

  • Whether you can get the meeting — and arrive knowing the client's capital structure better than their last banker did.
  • Whether you can coordinate people who do not report to you, and share the credit for what they bring.
  • Whether your paper reaches committee ready: the club's terms, the downside, and the way out, answered before the committee asks.
  • Whether you know where the bank actually makes money on the relationship, not only where the facility is.
  • Whether you can lose a deal on price without losing the client.

// 07 — WHAT YOU SEE FROM HERE

The whole bank from the client's side of the table — every product at once, priced against three other banks — and the club: how lenders who compete for the same borrower share a facility, vote on waivers and read each other's appetite. It is often among the first seats to learn when a large client's fortunes turn, and the one that has to decide what to tell the committee.

// 08 — THE FILES TO PRACTISE ON

// 09 — WHERE THE SEAT LEADS

Sector head, head of coverage, or the institutional seats where a bank's largest relationships are run. Some move into structured or leveraged finance, corporate finance or a client's own treasury; some go back into credit with a much larger view. The path upward is a record of relationships that stayed through a refinancing and a bad year.

// 10 — READ BEFORE THE ROUND

THE IN-TRAY · ONE MINUTE

Make the call on one file.

A short file on the ground this page covers. Every option opens with how far it sits from a senior banker’s read.

THE NUMBER · THE LOAN · PRICE

A company borrows at 8% a year. Its interest is deductible, and it pays tax at 25%.

What is its after-tax cost of this debt?

1 FILES · PICK A CALL ON ANY OF THEM

5 MORE ON THE LOAN · PRICE →WHERE DO YOU READ FROM? THE PLACEMENT →

// THE FREE CASE

FREE · NO PURCHASERead one complete case first Case 01 of the interview case pack — Northmark Engineering, the file, the diagnostic and the ninety-second walkthrough — in full, for an email address.10-PAGE PDF · FREE

// ALSO IN THE FRONT LINE

The whole board, and how the four blocks fit together, is on what jobs banks hire for.