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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.' It's only natural to consider a company's balance sheet when you examine how risky it is, since debt is often involved when a business collapses. Importantly, MBB SE (ETR:MBB) does carry debt. But is this debt a concern to shareholders?
What Risk Does Debt Bring?
Generally speaking, debt only becomes a real problem when a company can't easily pay it off, either by raising capital or with its own cash flow. In the worst case scenario, a company can go bankrupt if it cannot pay its creditors. However, a more frequent (but still costly) occurrence is where a company must issue shares at bargain-basement prices, permanently diluting shareholders, just to shore up its balance sheet. 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. When we examine debt levels, we first consider both cash and debt levels, together.
See our latest analysis for MBB
What Is MBB's Debt?
The image below, which you can click on for greater detail, shows that at June 2019 MBB had debt of €64.9m, up from €61.9m in one year. But it also has €213.3m in cash to offset that, meaning it has €148.4m net cash.
How Strong Is MBB's Balance Sheet?
According to the last reported balance sheet, MBB had liabilities of €128.3m due within 12 months, and liabilities of €96.3m due beyond 12 months. Offsetting these obligations, it had cash of €213.3m as well as receivables valued at €147.2m due within 12 months. So it actually has €136.0m more liquid assets than total liabilities.
This luscious liquidity implies that MBB's balance sheet is sturdy like a giant sequoia tree. On this basis we think its balance sheet is strong like a sleek panther or even a proud lion. Simply put, the fact that MBB has more cash than debt is arguably a good indication that it can manage its debt safely.
Another good sign is that MBB has been able to increase its EBIT by 25% in twelve months, making it easier to pay down debt. When analysing debt levels, the balance sheet is the obvious place to start. But ultimately the future profitability of the business will decide if MBB 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.
Finally, while the tax-man may adore accounting profits, lenders only accept cold hard cash. MBB may have net cash on the balance sheet, but it is still interesting to look at how well the business converts its earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) to free cash flow, because that will influence both its need for, and its capacity to manage debt. During the last three years, MBB burned a lot of cash. While that may be a result of expenditure for growth, it does make the debt far more risky.