Companion files · The Private Markets Career Guides
Inside the Rating Agency: Methodologies, Adjusted Metrics, the Rating Committee, Outlooks and Watches, Surveillance, NRSRO and ESMA Regulation, and the Career.
These are the companion files of the book. One workbook rebuilds the Thornvale case, the fictional packaging group the book follows from its first BBB rating to its fall below investment grade: the agency's adjustments, the adjusted metrics year by year, the forecast cases seen by three committees, the scorecard from leverage to the issuer and issue ratings, and the dashboard of triggers. A toolkit holds the checklists of Appendix B in an editable form.
The archive holds the workbook, the toolkit and 00_START_HERE.md. No macros, no circular references, no external links. The workbook recalculates in Excel, LibreOffice or Google Sheets.
Chapters 3, 5 to 7, 12 and 13
One Inputs sheet holds every assumption: reported figures by year, balance sheet items, the acquisition, the financial risk bands, the anchor matrix, the rating scale, the triggers and the forecast cases. Sheets for the adjusted metrics, the scorecard, the cases and the triggers, and a Checks sheet that puts the figures printed in the book beside the cells that compute them.
Download the workbook19 KBAppendix B
New rating information request, management meeting agenda, adjusted metrics, base case and downside, committee package, press release, quarterly surveillance, event risk and independence checklists.
Download the toolkit41 KBRead first
What each file holds, which sheet answers which chapter, and the two inputs to change first.
Download the read-me2 KB| The adjustments | $2,000 million of reported debt becomes $2,235 million of adjusted debt at the end of 2025, on $607 million of adjusted EBITDA: leverage of 3.68x |
| The missed base case | The January 2025 base case put 2025 leverage at 3.13x; the year came in at 3.68x |
| The fall | A May 2026 base case of 3.72x for 2026 gives an anchor of bb+: BB+ for the issuer, BBB- for the secured term loan |
The files are provided as they are, without warranty of any kind. The model is illustrative: Kestrel Bay Ratings, Thornvale Packaging Group and every other name in the case are fictional, Kestrel Bay’s methodology is a simplified teaching device and not the criteria of any real rating agency, and the figures are the book’s assumptions, not market data or forecasts. Nothing here is investment, legal, regulatory or accounting advice.