Yahoo Finance Johnson Matthey (LON:JMAT) Has A Pretty 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 might be obvious that you need to consider debt, when you think about how risky any given stock is, because too much debt can sink a company. We note that Johnson Matthey Plc (LON:JMAT) does have debt on its balance sheet. But should shareholders be worried about its use of debt?
Why Does Debt Bring Risk?
Generally speaking, debt only becomes a real problem when a company can't easily pay it off, either by raising capital or with its own cash flow. In the worst case scenario, a company can go bankrupt if it cannot pay its creditors. However, a more frequent (but still costly) occurrence is where a company must issue shares at bargain-basement prices, permanently diluting shareholders, just to shore up its balance sheet. Of course, debt can be an important tool in businesses, particularly capital heavy businesses. When we examine debt levels, we first consider both cash and debt levels, together.
Check out our latest analysis for Johnson Matthey
How Much Debt Does Johnson Matthey Carry?
The image below, which you can click on for greater detail, shows that at March 2019 Johnson Matthey had debt of UK£1.32b, up from UK£1.06b in one year. On the flip side, it has UK£459.0m in cash leading to net debt of about UK£857.0m.
How Strong Is Johnson Matthey's Balance Sheet?
The latest balance sheet data shows that Johnson Matthey had liabilities of UK£2.05b due within a year, and liabilities of UK£1.28b falling due after that. On the other hand, it had cash of UK£459.0m and UK£1.48b worth of receivables due within a year. So its liabilities outweigh the sum of its cash and (near-term) receivables by UK£1.40b.
Johnson Matthey has a market capitalization of UK£5.63b, so it could very likely raise cash to ameliorate its balance sheet, if the need arose. However, it is still worthwhile taking a close look at its ability to pay off debt.
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). This way, we consider both the absolute quantum of the debt, as well as the interest rates paid on it.
Johnson Matthey's net debt is only 1.2 times its EBITDA. And its EBIT easily covers its interest expense, being 12.3 times the size. So you could argue it is no more threatened by its debt than an elephant is by a mouse. The good news is that Johnson Matthey has increased its EBIT by 9.9% over twelve months, which should ease any concerns about debt repayment. There's no doubt that we learn most about debt from the balance sheet. But it is future earnings, more than anything, that will determine Johnson Matthey's ability to maintain a healthy balance sheet going forward. So if you want to see what the professionals think, you might find this free report on analyst profit forecasts to be interesting.
Finally, a company can only pay off debt with cold hard cash, not accounting profits. So we clearly need to look at whether that EBIT is leading to corresponding free cash flow. Looking at the most recent three years, Johnson Matthey recorded free cash flow of 30% of its EBIT, which is weaker than we'd expect. That's not great, when it comes to paying down debt.
Our View
On our analysis Johnson Matthey's interest cover should signal that it won't have too much trouble with its debt. But the other factors we noted above weren't so encouraging. For instance it seems like it has to struggle a bit to convert EBIT to free cash flow. When we consider all the elements mentioned above, it seems to us that Johnson Matthey is managing its debt quite well. But a word of caution: we think debt levels are high enough to justify ongoing monitoring. Over time, share prices tend to follow earnings per share, so if you're interested in Johnson Matthey, you may well want to click here to check an interactive graph of its earnings per share history.
At the end of the day, it's often better to focus on companies that are free from net debt. You can access our special list of such companies (all with a track record of profit growth). It's free.
We aim to bring you long-term focused research analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material.
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.
