Yahoo Finance What does Golden Minerals Company’s (NYSEMKT:AUMN) Balance Sheet Tell Us About Its Future?
Golden Minerals Company (NYSEMKT:AUMN), 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 AUMN will have to follow strict debt obligations which will reduce its financial flexibility. While AUMN has no debt on its balance sheet, it doesn’t necessarily mean it exhibits financial strength. I recommend you look at the following hurdles to assess AUMN’s financial health.
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Does AUMN’s growth rate justify its decision for financial flexibility over lower cost of capital?
There are well-known benefits of including debt in capital structure, primarily a lower cost of capital. 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. The lack of debt on AUMN’s balance sheet may be because it does not have access to cheap capital, or it may believe this trade-off is not worth it. Choosing financial flexibility over capital returns make sense if AUMN is a high-growth company. AUMN’s revenue growth over the past year is a single-digit 0.4% which is relatively low for a small-cap company. While its low growth hardly justifies opting for zero-debt, the company may have high growth projects in the pipeline to justify the trade-off.
Does AUMN’s liquid assets cover its short-term commitments?
Given zero long-term debt on its balance sheet, Golden Minerals has no solvency issues, which is used to describe the company’s ability to meet its long-term obligations. However, another measure of financial health is its short-term obligations, which is known as liquidity. These include payments to suppliers, employees and other stakeholders. Looking at AUMN’s most recent US$2.1m liabilities, it appears that the company has maintained a safe level of current assets to meet its obligations, with the current ratio last standing at 2.13x. Usually, for Metals and Mining 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:
Having no debt on the books means AUMN has more financial freedom to keep growing at its current fast rate. Since there is also no concerns around AUMN’s liquidity needs, this may be its optimal capital structure for the time being. In the future, its financial position may change. I admit this is a fairly basic analysis for AUMN’s financial health. Other important fundamentals need to be considered alongside. You should continue to research Golden Minerals to get a more holistic view of the stock by looking at:
Historical Performance: What has AUMN’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.
