TASK-FIN-102-02 · Task family
Financial covenant reconstruction. EBITDA adjustments, leverage and interest-coverage ratios under the agreement's calculation rules.
Overview. Recompute covenant EBITDA, leverage and headroom under the operative terms, and compare with the certificate.
A borrower's compliance certificate reports a leverage ratio. The agent rebuilds the ratio from the financials using the agreement's definitions, which cap the add-backs the borrower claimed.
Matching the certificate isn't the goal. The certificate can reach the right conclusion with the wrong number, and the verifier checks both.
Value to the buyer
Rebuilding the borrower's numbers independently is the core of covenant monitoring.
Specification. The task family, field by field.
- task_id:
- TASK-FIN-102-02
- domain:
- Credit Analysis & Private Credit
- parent_environment:
- ENV-FIN-102 · Credit & Covenant
- target_role:
- Loan Portfolio Analyst
- objective:
- Recompute covenant EBITDA, leverage and headroom under the operative terms, and compare with the certificate.
- starting_context:
- Quarterly financials, the compliance certificate, the agreement and Amendment No. 2.
- tools:
get_borrower_financialsget_agreementget_amendmentsextract_covenant_termscalculate_financial_ratioupdate_covenant_case
- required_actions:
- Compute net debt from debt and unrestricted cash
- Apply the add-back cap to the claimed add-backs
- Compute leverage and EBITDA headroom against the threshold
- Reconcile differences with the certificate
- expected_outputs:
- Covenant calculation
- Comparison with the certificate
- Updated covenant case
- interaction:
- Single agent with tool access.
- verification:
- Every figure is recomputed from the financials and the operative definitions.
- reward:
- Credit for each correct figure and for the determination. A determination that contradicts the reconstructed ratio scores zero.
- difficulty:
- Calibrated against reference models during acceptance testing
- task_horizon:
- Multi-step calculation across documents. Execution limits are agreed with the buyer.
- delivery:
- Task instances with seeded financials, reference calculations and verifier code.
- commercial_unit:
- Per validated task instance
Sample prompt. What the agent is asked to do, as a buyer would see it.
Northbridge Credit has submitted its Q3 2026 financial statements and compliance certificate. Total debt is $505.0m and unrestricted cash is $35.0m. Trailing-twelve-month EBITDA before add-backs is $88.0m, and the borrower claims $14.0m of add-backs. Under Amendment No. 2, add-backs are capped at 15% of EBITDA before add-backs, and maximum total net leverage is 5.00×. Reconstruct the covenant calculation, compare it with the certificate, and assess compliance.
Verification criteria. What the verifier checks, and how.
Net debt
$505.0m less $35.0m = $470.0m.
Add-back cap
15% of $88.0m caps add-backs at $13.2m, not $14.0m.
Covenant EBITDA
$101.2m.
Leverage
470.0 / 101.2 = 4.64×, below 5.00×: compliant.
Headroom
EBITDA could fall to $94.0m, a cushion of about 7.1%.
Certificate
The certificate's 4.61× uses uncapped add-backs. The conclusion holds, but the figure is flagged.
Key failure modes. Where agents go wrong on this task.
- Accepting the certificate's uncapped add-backs
- Using the original 4.50× threshold and reporting a breach
- Computing gross rather than net leverage
Other task families. The rest of Credit & Covenant, on the same FinanceWorld state.
- TASK-FIN-102-01
Credit agreement & amendment interpretation
Document navigation, clause precedence and contractual definitions.
Credit Analyst
- TASK-FIN-102-03
Breach, waiver & cure investigation
Breach detection, cure provisions, waiver interpretation and escalation.
Private Credit Associate
- TASK-FIN-102-04
Credit portfolio monitoring
Multi-borrower analysis, reporting exceptions and risk summaries.
Loan Portfolio Analyst