Structuring Financial Covenants: Purposes, Types, Definitions, and Uses in Loan Documents
Maximizing Borrower Protection and Lender Remedies

Course Details
- smart_display Format
Live Online with Live Q&A
- signal_cellular_alt Difficulty Level
Intermediate
- work Practice Area
Banking and Finance
- event Date
Wednesday, May 28, 2025
- schedule Time
1:00 p.m. ET./10:00 a.m. PT
- timer Program Length
90 minutes
-
This 90-minute webinar is eligible in most states for 1.5 CLE credits.
This CLE course will provide borrowers' and lenders' counsel with a review of the use of EBITDA, leverage ratios, and other metrics in loan documentation and uses of financial covenants. The panel will outline critical issues relating to structuring financial covenants, related definitions, and use in commercial loans.
Faculty

Mr. Surbeck represents a diverse clientele, including corporate entities engaging in forming Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOPs) and obtaining financing and other financial services, independent ESOP trustees purchasing companies, and a variety of lenders, including regional, national and international banks, and debt funds in lending and other transactional matters. He advises lending clients in syndicated, club and single-lender transactions, covering secured and unsecured financing as well as specialty collateral structures, receivables purchases, and factoring matters. Mr. Surbeck has extensive experience with senior, split-lien and junior financing arrangements, including cash flow and asset-based financing, sponsor and acquisition financing, ESOP financing and fund finance. He counsels clients in industries, such as mortgage servicing, health care, government contracting, heavy equipment, construction and mining, energy, publishing, law firm lending and security services. Mr. Surbeck brings a wealth of knowledge to effectively navigate complex ESOP and financial transactions and provide strategic counsel to his clients.

Ms. Campana represents a wide variety of direct and alternative lenders, particularly those involving private sources of capital, including private debt funds, hedge funds, specialty finance companies, business development companies, private equity investors, and issuers in domestic and cross-border financings across the capital structure in connection with acquisitions, leveraged buyouts, convertible debt, equity investments, letters of credit, and project financings. Ms. Campana is a frequent author and lecturer on finance issues.
Description
Negotiating the definition of EBITDA and related financial covenants is a matter of intense client focus. Sophisticated clients rely on counsel to provide knowledgeable support on EBITDA and relevant covenants.
Strategically crafted financial covenants and related definitions can provide the borrower with the flexibility to operate its business and the lender with adequate protection and remedies.
Uncertainty or lack of clarity regarding drafting financial covenants and related definitions may result in costly disputes. Carefully structured credit agreement provisions can minimize disagreements among the parties.
Listen as our authoritative panel of finance practitioners discusses trends in the use of EBITDA in loan documentation and financial covenants and events of default provisions in commercial loans.
Outline
- Purpose of financial covenants
- Types of financial covenants
- Financial definitions: net income, EBITDA, fixed charges
- Covenant-lite transactions
- Distinctions between cash flow and asset-backed loans
- Mandatory prepayments: excess cash flow
- Equity cure rights
Benefits
The panel will review these and other key issues:
- Why have financial covenants?
- What are the critical conceptual drivers that fuel the negotiation of financial covenants?
- How does understanding these key concepts help negotiate the optimal outcome for clients?
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