Cash conversion comes first
A lender is repaid from cash, not profit. Show EBITDA, then the working capital and capital spending between it and free cash flow, month by month for three years. If conversion is low, explain why before they ask.
Then covenant headroom
Run the covenants they are likely to propose against your own forecast, and against a downside case. A pack that shows comfortable headroom in a bad year gets better terms than one that shows a better plan.
The plan comes last
The plan matters, but a credit committee reads it to test the first two pages, not to be persuaded by it. Keep it short, and tie every number back to the cash pages.
