Does Perrigo (NYSE:PRGO) Have A Healthy Balance Sheet?
Legendary fund manager Li Lu (who Charlie Munger backed) once said, 'The biggest investment risk is not the volatility of prices, but whether you will suffer a permanent loss of capital.' So it seems the smart money knows that debt - which is usually involved in bankruptcies - is a very important factor, when you assess how risky a company is. As with many other companies Perrigo Company plc (NYSE:PRGO) makes use of debt. But the more important question is: how much risk is that debt creating?
Why Does Debt Bring Risk?
Debt assists a business until the business has trouble paying it off, either with new capital or with free cash flow. Ultimately, if the company can't fulfill its legal obligations to repay debt, shareholders could walk away with nothing. 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, plenty of companies use debt to fund growth, without any negative consequences. The first thing to do when considering how much debt a business uses is to look at its cash and debt together.
Check out our latest analysis for Perrigo
What Is Perrigo's Debt?
As you can see below, at the end of June 2019, Perrigo had US$3.47b of debt, up from US$3.28b a year ago. Click the image for more detail. However, because it has a cash reserve of US$1.06b, its net debt is less, at about US$2.41b.
How Strong Is Perrigo's Balance Sheet?
According to the last reported balance sheet, Perrigo had liabilities of US$1.79b due within 12 months, and liabilities of US$3.91b due beyond 12 months. On the other hand, it had cash of US$1.06b and US$1.13b worth of receivables due within a year. So its liabilities total US$3.51b more than the combination of its cash and short-term receivables.
This deficit isn't so bad because Perrigo is worth US$6.50b, and thus could probably raise enough capital to shore up 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.
In order to size up a company's debt relative to its earnings, we calculate its net debt divided by its earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) and its earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) divided by its interest expense (its interest cover). Thus we consider debt relative to earnings both with and without depreciation and amortization expenses.
Perrigo has a debt to EBITDA ratio of 2.9 and its EBIT covered its interest expense 3.4 times. Taken together this implies that, while we wouldn't want to see debt levels rise, we think it can handle its current leverage. Worse, Perrigo's EBIT was down 33% over the last year. 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 Perrigo 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.
Finally, a business needs free cash flow to pay off debt; accounting profits just don't cut it. So we clearly need to look at whether that EBIT is leading to corresponding free cash flow. Happily for any shareholders, Perrigo actually produced more free cash flow than EBIT over the last three years. That sort of strong cash generation warms our hearts like a puppy in a bumblebee suit.
Our View
Neither Perrigo's ability to grow its EBIT nor its interest cover gave us confidence in its ability to take on more debt. But the good news is it seems to be able to convert EBIT to free cash flow with ease. Taking the abovementioned factors together we do think Perrigo's debt poses some risks to the business. So while that leverage does boost returns on equity, we wouldn't really want to see it increase from here. In light of our reservations about the company's balance sheet, it seems sensible to check if insiders have been selling shares recently.
Of course, if you're the type of investor who prefers buying stocks without the burden of debt, then don't hesitate to discover our exclusive list of net cash growth stocks, today.
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If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading.
