What does Alcidion Group Limited’s (ASX:ALC) Balance Sheet Tell Us About Its Future?
Alcidion Group Limited (ASX:ALC), which has zero-debt on its balance sheet, can maximize capital returns by increasing debt due to its lower cost of capital. However, the trade-off is ALC will have to follow strict debt obligations which will reduce its financial flexibility. While ALC has no debt on its balance sheet, it doesn’t necessarily mean it exhibits financial strength. I will take you through a few basic checks to assess the financial health of companies with no debt.
Check out our latest analysis for Alcidion Group
Is ALC growing fast enough to value financial flexibility over lower cost of capital?
Debt funding can be cheaper than issuing new equity due to lower interest cost on debt. But the downside of having debt in a company’s balance sheet is the debtholder’s higher claim on its assets in the case of liquidation, as well as stricter capital management requirements. ALC’s absence of debt on its balance sheet may be due to lack of access to cheaper capital, or it may simply believe low cost is not worth sacrificing financial flexibility. However, choosing flexibility over capital returns is logical only if it’s a high-growth company. ALC’s revenue growth over the past year is a double-digit 21% which is considerably high for a small-cap company. Therefore, the company’s decision to choose financial flexibility is justified as it may need headroom to borrow in the future to sustain high growth.
Does ALC’s liquid assets cover its short-term commitments?
Given zero long-term debt on its balance sheet, Alcidion Group has no solvency issues, which is used to describe the company’s ability to meet its long-term obligations. But another important aspect of financial health is liquidity: the company’s ability to meet short-term obligations, including payments to suppliers and employees. With current liabilities at AU$2m, it appears that the company has been able to meet these commitments with a current assets level of AU$4m, leading to a 1.88x current account ratio. Usually, for Healthcare Services companies, this is a suitable ratio since there’s a sufficient cash cushion without leaving too much capital idle or in low-earning investments.
Next Steps:
ALC is a fast-growing firm, which supports having have zero-debt and financial freedom to continue to ramp up growth. This may mean this is an optimal capital structure for the business, given that it is also meeting its short-term commitment. In the future, its financial position may be different. I admit this is a fairly basic analysis for ALC’s financial health. Other important fundamentals need to be considered alongside. You should continue to research Alcidion Group to get a more holistic view of the stock by looking at:
Historical Performance: What has ALC’s returns been like over the past? Go into more detail in the past track record analysis and take a look at the free visual representations of our analysis for more clarity.
Other High-Performing Stocks: Are there other stocks that provide better prospects with proven track records? Explore our free list of these great stocks here.
To help readers see past 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. For errors that warrant correction please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com.
