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David Iben put it well when he said, 'Volatility is not a risk we care about. What we care about is avoiding the permanent loss of capital. So it might be obvious that you need to consider debt, when you think about how risky any given stock is, because too much debt can sink a company. As with many other companies AnAn International Limited (SGX:Y35) makes use of debt. But is this debt a concern to shareholders?
When Is Debt A Problem?
Debt and other liabilities become risky for a business when it cannot easily fulfill those obligations, either with free cash flow or by raising capital at an attractive price. Ultimately, if the company can't fulfill its legal obligations to repay debt, shareholders could walk away with nothing. However, a more common (but still painful) scenario is that it has to raise new equity capital at a low price, thus permanently diluting shareholders. Having said that, the most common situation is where a company manages its debt reasonably well - and to its own advantage. The first thing to do when considering how much debt a business uses is to look at its cash and debt together.
Check out our latest analysis for AnAn International
What Is AnAn International's Net Debt?
The image below, which you can click on for greater detail, shows that AnAn International had debt of US$58.3m at the end of June 2019, a reduction from US$80.9m over a year. However, it does have US$17.4m in cash offsetting this, leading to net debt of about US$40.9m.
A Look At AnAn International's Liabilities
Zooming in on the latest balance sheet data, we can see that AnAn International had liabilities of US$280.6m due within 12 months and liabilities of US$35.7m due beyond that. Offsetting these obligations, it had cash of US$17.4m as well as receivables valued at US$208.3m due within 12 months. So it has liabilities totalling US$90.7m more than its cash and near-term receivables, combined.
The deficiency here weighs heavily on the US$6.15m company itself, as if a child were struggling under the weight of an enormous back-pack full of books, his sports gear, and a trumpet." So we definitely think shareholders need to watch this one closely. After all, AnAn International would likely require a major re-capitalisation if it had to pay its creditors today.
In order to size up a company's debt relative to its earnings, we calculate its net debt divided by its earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) and its earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) divided by its interest expense (its interest cover). The advantage of this approach is that we take into account both the absolute quantum of debt (with net debt to EBITDA) and the actual interest expenses associated with that debt (with its interest cover ratio).