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. 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, ALSO Holding AG (VTX:ALSN) does carry debt. But the real question is whether this debt is making the company risky.
When Is Debt Dangerous?
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. If things get really bad, the lenders can take control of the business. 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. The first thing to do when considering how much debt a business uses is to look at its cash and debt together.
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How Much Debt Does ALSO Holding Carry?
As you can see below, at the end of June 2019, ALSO Holding had €515.8m of debt, up from €356.9m a year ago. Click the image for more detail. On the flip side, it has €185.5m in cash leading to net debt of about €330.2m.
A Look At ALSO Holding's Liabilities
According to the last reported balance sheet, ALSO Holding had liabilities of €1.03b due within 12 months, and liabilities of €466.0m due beyond 12 months. Offsetting this, it had €185.5m in cash and €951.2m in receivables that were due within 12 months. So it has liabilities totalling €355.6m more than its cash and near-term receivables, combined.
ALSO Holding has a market capitalization of €1.67b, so it could very likely raise cash to ameliorate its balance sheet, if the need arose. But we definitely want to keep our eyes open to indications that its debt is bringing too much risk.
We use two main ratios to inform us about debt levels relative to earnings. The first is net debt divided by earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA), while the second is how many times its earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) covers its interest expense (or its interest cover, for short). Thus we consider debt relative to earnings both with and without depreciation and amortization expenses.
With a debt to EBITDA ratio of 1.8, ALSO Holding uses debt artfully but responsibly. And the alluring interest cover (EBIT of 8.7 times interest expense) certainly does not do anything to dispel this impression. If ALSO Holding can keep growing EBIT at last year's rate of 19% over the last year, then it will find its debt load easier to manage. 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 ALSO Holding 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.