The external fund manager backed by Berkshire Hathaway's Charlie Munger, Li Lu, makes no bones about it when he says 'The biggest investment risk is not the volatility of prices, but whether you will suffer a permanent loss of capital. When we think about how risky a company is, we always like to look at its use of debt, since debt overload can lead to ruin. Importantly, Bergman & Beving AB (publ) (STO:BERG B) does carry debt. But the real question is whether this debt is making the company risky.

When Is Debt A Problem?

Debt is a tool to help businesses grow, but if a business is incapable of paying off its lenders, then it exists at their mercy. In the worst case scenario, a company can go bankrupt if it cannot pay its creditors. However, a more usual (but still expensive) situation is where a company must dilute shareholders at a cheap share price simply to get debt under control. Of course, the upside of debt is that it often represents cheap capital, especially when it replaces dilution in a company with the ability to reinvest at high rates of return. The first thing to do when considering how much debt a business uses is to look at its cash and debt together.

View our latest analysis for Bergman & Beving

What Is Bergman & Beving's Debt?

The image below, which you can click on for greater detail, shows that at September 2019 Bergman & Beving had debt of kr713.0m, up from kr440.0m in one year. However, it also had kr84.0m in cash, and so its net debt is kr629.0m.

How Strong Is Bergman & Beving's Balance Sheet?

Zooming in on the latest balance sheet data, we can see that Bergman & Beving had liabilities of kr1.39b due within 12 months and liabilities of kr1.60b due beyond that. Offsetting this, it had kr84.0m in cash and kr944.0m in receivables that were due within 12 months. So it has liabilities totalling kr1.97b more than its cash and near-term receivables, combined.

This is a mountain of leverage relative to its market capitalization of kr2.34b. Should its lenders demand that it shore up the balance sheet, shareholders would likely face severe dilution.

We measure a company's debt load relative to its earnings power by looking at its net debt divided by its earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) and by calculating how easily its earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) cover its interest expense (interest cover). Thus we consider debt relative to earnings both with and without depreciation and amortization expenses.

Bergman & Beving has a debt to EBITDA ratio of 2.6, which signals significant debt, but is still pretty reasonable for most types of business. However, its interest coverage of 13.9 is very high, suggesting that the interest expense may well rise in the future, even if there hasn't yet been a major cost attached to that debt. Unfortunately, Bergman & Beving saw its EBIT slide 2.3% in the last twelve months. If that earnings trend continues then its debt load will grow heavy like the heart of a polar bear watching its sole cub. There's no doubt that we learn most about debt from the balance sheet. But ultimately the future profitability of the business will decide if Bergman & Beving can strengthen its balance sheet over time. So if you're focused on the future you can check out this free report showing analyst profit forecasts.