In 2020, this was quite a formative year for me. My banker hat As a banker in a large local bank, I do credit analysis for a living. In a nutshell, this means

1. Looking at the company business and deciding whether we want to be a part of it

2. Looking at the financials and seeing if its capital structure is sound and can support the loans.

3. Looking at the business risks and figuring out what mitigating factors there are.

In some way, lenders or bond holders are in the "negative art" business" being we are looking to avoid losses of any sort rather than make a huge upside which is the opposite end of that an equity holder holds. All that really matters is 2 things (Operating Cash Flow / Free Cash Flow and Shareholder Equity Cushion) So to say I understand a balance sheet and profits is quite natural as part of my daily job....