Finished Uni at Bristol in 2022, now a second year graduate at Lloyds
After applying to a few random internship in my second year at Uni, I managed to get an offer from HSBC for their Commercial Banking Internship which after the programme made me realise I had a huge interest in banking and finance.
This led me to apply for the Lloyds Commercial Banking Graduate Scheme, and after initially being put on the reserve list for the HSBC Commercial Banking Graduate Scheme, I received an offer from both Lloyds and HSBC within two hours of each other. I decided to choose Lloyds because the graduate scheme really appealed to me due to the wide variety of areas that you have opportunities to work in (i.e. Markets, Corporate Bank, SME). Now that I am second year graduate, I can safely say that choosing Lloyds was the best decision I could have made.
I help originate, structure and execute leveraged debt facilities
I support clients in the SME business to originate, structure and execute specialist cashflow/ leveraged debt facilities for event driven transactions (i.e. MBO, M&A, growth capital). This involves supporting all aspects of the deal process, from financial modelling and writing credit papers in order to receive credit approval for transactions, to working with lawyers to draw up facility agreements. My role also includes a lot of opportunities to go out to client meetings to discuss clients financing needs.
My first placement was in the Corporate and Institutional Debt team which involved me supporting Corporate and Institutional clients dent financing strategies, with end-to-end debt proposition including origination, structuring and execution of material credit events.
my second placement was in Infrastructure & Project Finance Credit. My responsibilities in this team included reviewing annual renewals in a broad range of asset classes (i.e. renewables, fibre), supporting deal teams in origination transactions by reviewing due diligence material, and ad-hoc reporting and supporting the day-to-day running of the credit function.
The ability to work on exciting live deals and speaking to clients
Working on deals is highly fascinating because you get to see all aspects of the deal process which provides a great deal of accomplishment when deals are executed because you see a tangible benefit afterwards for clients.
It also provides a lot of opportunities to engage with technical aspects of the job, such as financial modelling where we are forecasting the cash flow of the business to asses what debt capacity they have.
Be as honest and authentic as you can
Don't make the mistake of pretending to be someone you are not. We recognise that everybody has strengths and weaknesses, so embracing them is vital so that you we can really learn who you are.
Helping business's debt financing strategies to aid their growth
I have worked on numerous transactions that have enabled clients to receive the financing they need to achieve their growth strategies.
