Practice area · 7 editions

Finance & Capital Markets

How companies borrow serious money from banks or from investors, how they hedge the risks that come with a loan, and how a broker serves the people who invest.

Banking and finance work is document-heavy from the first day. Juniors run conditions precedent checklists, compare agreed forms, and follow drawdowns, interest periods and compliance certificates through their dates. The documents are long, but they follow a pattern that becomes readable once you have been through one properly.

The editions here take financing documents apart one at a time. The first follows a syndicated facility from mandate letter to drawdown. The second follows an interest-rate swap over a floating-rate loan, through the master agreement, collateral and close-out. The third follows a company's first bond, from the first draft of the prospectus to listing in Dublin and the first interest payment. The fourth follows the same company years later, when it cannot repay that bond. The fifth follows an online broker's client agreement, from the licence to complaints. None needs any maths beyond a percentage.