These 4 Measures Indicate That TESSCO Technologies (NASDAQ:TESS) Is Using Debt Extensively
Warren Buffett famously said, 'Volatility is far from synonymous with risk.' 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. We note that TESSCO Technologies Incorporated (NASDAQ:TESS) does have debt on its balance sheet. But the more important question is: how much risk is that debt creating?
When Is Debt A Problem?
Debt assists a business until the business has trouble paying it off, either with new capital or with free cash flow. 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. When we think about a company's use of debt, we first look at cash and debt together.
View our latest analysis for TESSCO Technologies
What Is TESSCO Technologies's Net Debt?
The image below, which you can click on for greater detail, shows that at June 2019 TESSCO Technologies had debt of US$20.1m, up from US$15.8m in one year. Net debt is about the same, since the it doesn't have much cash.
How Healthy Is TESSCO Technologies's Balance Sheet?
We can see from the most recent balance sheet that TESSCO Technologies had liabilities of US$122.2m falling due within a year, and liabilities of US$2.52m due beyond that. Offsetting this, it had US$17.2k in cash and US$81.3m in receivables that were due within 12 months. So it has liabilities totalling US$43.4m more than its cash and near-term receivables, combined.
While this might seem like a lot, it is not so bad since TESSCO Technologies has a market capitalization of US$134.4m, and so it could probably strengthen its balance sheet by raising capital if it needed to. 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). 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).
TESSCO Technologies has a debt to EBITDA ratio of 2.8 and its EBIT covered its interest expense 4.0 times. Taken together this implies that, while we wouldn't want to see debt levels rise, we think it can handle its current leverage. Even worse, TESSCO Technologies saw its EBIT tank 57% over the last 12 months. If earnings keep going like that over the long term, it has a snowball's chance in hell of paying off that debt. 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 TESSCO Technologies 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.
But our final consideration is also important, because a company cannot pay debt with paper profits; it needs cold hard cash. So we always check how much of that EBIT is translated into free cash flow. Over the last three years, TESSCO Technologies saw substantial negative free cash flow, in total. While that may be a result of expenditure for growth, it does make the debt far more risky.
Our View
To be frank both TESSCO Technologies's conversion of EBIT to free cash flow and its track record of (not) growing its EBIT make us rather uncomfortable with its debt levels. But at least its level of total liabilities is not so bad. We're quite clear that we consider TESSCO Technologies to be really rather risky, as a result of its balance sheet health. So we're almost as wary of this stock as a hungry kitten is about falling into its owner's fish pond: once bitten, twice shy, as they say. In light of our reservations about the company's balance sheet, it seems sensible to check if insiders have been selling shares recently.
If, after all that, you're more interested in a fast growing company with a rock-solid balance sheet, then check out our list of net cash growth stocks without delay.
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