Howard Marks put it nicely when he said that, rather than worrying about share price volatility, ‘The possibility of permanent loss is the risk I worry about… and every practical investor I know worries about.’ When we think about how risky a company is, we always like to look at its use of debt, since debt overload can lead to ruin. We can see that Linde plc (NYSE:LIN) does use debt in its business. But the more important question is: how much risk is that debt creating?
When Is Debt Dangerous?
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. If things get really bad, the lenders can take control of the business. 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. The first thing to do when considering how much debt a business uses is to look at its cash and debt together.
How Much Debt Does Linde Carry?
The image below, which you can click on for greater detail, shows that Linde had debt of US$15.5b at the end of June 2021, a reduction from US$17.3b over a year. On the flip side, it has US$3.14b in cash leading to net debt of about US$12.4b.
How Healthy Is Linde’s Balance Sheet?
Zooming in on the latest balance sheet data, we can see that Linde had liabilities of US$14.7b due within 12 months and liabilities of US$22.4b due beyond that. Offsetting this, it had US$3.14b in cash and US$4.52b in receivables that were due within 12 months. So its liabilities outweigh the sum of its cash and (near-term) receivables by US$29.5b.
Given Linde has a humongous market capitalization of US$151.9b, it’s hard to believe these liabilities pose much threat. But there are sufficient liabilities that we would certainly recommend shareholders continue to monitor the balance sheet, going forward.
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). The advantage of this approach is that we take into account both the absolute quantum of debt (with net debt to EBITDA) and the actual interest expenses associated with that debt (with its interest cover ratio).
Linde has a low net debt to EBITDA ratio of only 1.3. And its EBIT easily covers its interest expense, being 27.4 times the size. So you could argue it is no more threatened by its debt than an elephant is by a mouse. On top of that, Linde grew its EBIT by 34% over the last twelve months, and that growth will make it easier to handle its debt. When analysing debt levels, the balance sheet is the obvious place to start. But ultimately the future profitability of the business will decide if Linde can strengthen its balance sheet over time. So if you want to see what the professionals think, you might find this free report on analyst profit forecasts to be interesting.
But our final consideration is also important, because a company cannot pay debt with paper profits; it needs cold hard cash. So we always check how much of that EBIT is translated into free cash flow. During the last three years, Linde generated free cash flow amounting to a very robust 88% of its EBIT, more than we’d expect. That puts it in a very strong position to pay down debt.
Our View
Happily, Linde’s impressive interest cover implies it has the upper hand on its debt. And that’s just the beginning of the good news since its conversion of EBIT to free cash flow is also very heartening. Considering this range of factors, it seems to us that Linde is quite prudent with its debt, and the risks seem well managed. So the balance sheet looks pretty healthy, to us. The balance sheet is clearly the area to focus on when you are analysing debt.