Some say volatility, rather than debt, is the best way to think about risk as an investor, but Warren Buffett famously said that 'Volatility is far from synonymous with risk. 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 GVC Holdings PLC (LON:GVC) makes use of debt. But the more important question is: how much risk is that debt creating?
What Risk Does Debt Bring?
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. While that is not too common, we often do see indebted companies permanently diluting shareholders because lenders force them to raise capital at a distressed price. Of course, plenty of companies use debt to fund growth, without any negative consequences. When we examine debt levels, we first consider both cash and debt levels, together.
View our latest analysis for GVC Holdings
How Much Debt Does GVC Holdings Carry?
The chart below, which you can click on for greater detail, shows that GVC Holdings had UK£2.23b in debt in June 2019; about the same as the year before. However, it also had UK£399.4m in cash, and so its net debt is UK£1.83b.
How Strong Is GVC Holdings's Balance Sheet?
According to the last reported balance sheet, GVC Holdings had liabilities of UK£1.25b due within 12 months, and liabilities of UK£3.02b due beyond 12 months. On the other hand, it had cash of UK£399.4m and UK£461.8m worth of receivables due within a year. So its liabilities outweigh the sum of its cash and (near-term) receivables by UK£3.41b.
This is a mountain of leverage relative to its market capitalization of UK£4.27b. 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). This way, we consider both the absolute quantum of the debt, as well as the interest rates paid on it.
While we wouldn't worry about GVC Holdings's net debt to EBITDA ratio of 4.0, we think its super-low interest cover of 0.22 times is a sign of high leverage. It seems that the business incurs large depreciation and amortisation charges, so maybe its debt load is heavier than it would first appear, since EBITDA is arguably a generous measure of earnings. It seems clear that the cost of borrowing money is negatively impacting returns for shareholders, of late. Worse, GVC Holdings's EBIT was down 81% over the last year. If earnings continue to follow that trajectory, paying off that debt load will be harder than convincing us to run a marathon in the rain. 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 GVC Holdings can strengthen its balance sheet over time. So if you want to see what the professionals think, you might find this free report on analyst profit forecasts to be interesting.