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Is ARC Resources Ltd (TSE:ARX) As Strong As Its Balance Sheet Indicates?

Mid-caps stocks, like ARC Resources Ltd (TSX:ARX) with a market capitalization of CA$5.15B, aren’t the focus of most investors who prefer to direct their investments towards either large-cap or small-cap stocks. Surprisingly though, when accounted for risk, mid-caps have delivered better returns compared to the two other categories of stocks. Mid-caps are found to be more volatile than the large-caps but safer than small-caps, largely due to their weaker balance sheet. I recommend you look at the following hurdles to assess ARX’s financial health. View our latest analysis for ARC Resources

Is ARX’s level of debt at an acceptable level?

TSX:ARX Historical Debt Dec 28th 17
TSX:ARX Historical Debt Dec 28th 17

While ideally the debt-to equity ratio of a financially healthy company should be less than 40%, several factors such as industry life-cycle and economic conditions can result in a company raising a significant amount of debt. For ARX, the debt-to-equity ratio is 25.29%, which means its risk of facing a debt-overhang is very low. We can test if ARX’s debt levels are sustainable by measuring interest payments against earnings of a company. Ideally, earnings (EBIT) should cover interest by at least three times, therefore reducing concerns when profit is highly volatile. In ARX’s case, its interest is excessively covered by its earnings as the ratio sits at 9.64x. This means lenders may be inclined to lend more money to the company, as it is seen as safe in terms of payback.

Can ARX pay its short-term liabilities?

TSX:ARX Net Worth Dec 28th 17
TSX:ARX Net Worth Dec 28th 17

A different measure of financial health is measured by its short-term obligations, which is known as liquidity. These include payments to suppliers, employees and other stakeholders. If an adverse event occurs, the company may be forced to pay these immediate expenses with its liquid assets. We need to assess ARX’s cash and other liquid assets against its upcoming expenses. Our analysis shows that ARX is able to meet its upcoming commitments with its cash and other short-term assets, which lessens our concerns for the company’s business operations should any unfavourable circumstances arise.

Next Steps:

Are you a shareholder? ARX’s high cash coverage and appropriate debt levels indicate its ability to utilise its borrowings efficiently in order to generate ample cash flow. Given that ARX’s capital structure may change, You should continue exploring market expectations for ARX’s future growth on our free analysis platform.

Are you a potential investor? Although investors should analyse the serviceability of debt, it shouldn’t be viewed in isolation of other factors. Ultimately, debt financing is an important source of funding for companies seeking to grow through new projects and investments. ARX’s Return on Capital Employed (ROCE) in order to see management’s track record at deploying funds in high-returning projects.


To help readers see pass the short term volatility of the financial market, we aim to bring you a long-term focused research analysis purely driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis does not factor in the latest price sensitive company announcements.

The author is an independent contributor and at the time of publication had no position in the stocks mentioned.

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