Best resources to learnCredit Analysis & Lending

The Bank Credit Analysis Handbook (2nd Edition)

An 800-page reference on analyzing banks as borrowers and counterparties: CAMEL-style evaluation, asset quality, capital adequacy, liquidity, earnings, and how bank credit analysis differs from corporate, with worked examples from emerging- and developed-market banks.

advanced🇬🇧

A Pragmatist's Guide to Leveraged Finance (2nd Edition)

A working credit analyst's guide to high-yield bonds and leveraged loans, covering credit statistics, liquidity and cash-flow projections, covenants, capital-structure ranking, relative value, fallen angels, and CLOs. The most practical text on covenants and sub-investment-grade debt; the standard recommendation for leveraged finance and private credit roles. It reads like on-the-job training at a credit desk.

Financial Statement Analysis: A Practitioner's Guide (5th Edition)

Fridson and Alvarez teach financial statements from a skeptic's point of view, covering earnings quality, cash-flow statement analysis, ratio analysis, and a dedicated treatment of credit analysis and default risk. Its forensic approach suits credit work better than equity-focused texts. The 2022 fifth edition updates accounting standards and case examples.

Standard & Poor's Fundamentals of Corporate Credit Analysis

The standard book on how a rating agency actually builds a corporate credit view. Two S&P ratings veterans set out the rating-agency framework for corporate credit: business risk, industry and competitive position, cash-flow and ratio analysis, debt structure, and loss-given-default analysis. It shows how a company's financial profile maps to a rating.

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Wall Street Prep – Ultimate Guide to Leveraged Finance

A practitioner-oriented reference on the debt used in leveraged buyouts, comparing first and second lien term loans, revolvers, high yield bonds, mezzanine, and unitranche on pricing, security, and covenant terms, with worked capital structure examples.

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Guide to Credit Rating Essentials

S&P Global Ratings' short official primer on what credit ratings are and how they are made: the rating scale, investment-grade versus speculative-grade, default probabilities, the rating-committee process, and the limits of ratings.

beginner🇬🇧

Comptroller's Handbook: Rating Credit Risk

The OCC's 69-page examiner guide to how banks rate commercial credit risk: financial-statement analysis for repayment capacity, secondary repayment sources, guarantors and collateral, regulatory classifications (special mention, substandard, doubtful), and nonaccrual rules.

OCC Comptroller's Handbook – Leveraged Lending

The US bank regulator's examination manual for leveraged lending, setting out how supervisors define a leveraged transaction, assess repayment capacity and enterprise valuation, judge covenant quality and underwriting standards, and classify credits that fail those tests.