The external fund manager backed by Berkshire Hathaway’s Charlie Munger, Li Lu, makes no bones about it when he says ‘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 McCormick & Company, Incorporated (NYSE:MKC) makes use of debt. But the more important question is: how much risk is that debt creating?
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. Part and parcel of capitalism is the process of ‘creative destruction’ where failed businesses are mercilessly liquidated by their bankers. 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. By replacing dilution, though, debt can be an extremely good tool for businesses that need capital to invest in growth at high rates of return. When we think about a company’s use of debt, we first look at cash and debt together.
What Is McCormick’s Debt?
You can click the graphic below for the historical numbers, but it shows that as of May 2021 McCormick had US$5.21b of debt, an increase on US$4.16b, over one year. However, it does have US$291.8m in cash offsetting this, leading to net debt of about US$4.92b.
How Healthy Is McCormick’s Balance Sheet?
We can see from the most recent balance sheet that McCormick had liabilities of US$2.38b falling due within a year, and liabilities of US$6.09b due beyond that. Offsetting this, it had US$291.8m in cash and US$500.4m in receivables that were due within 12 months. So its liabilities outweigh the sum of its cash and (near-term) receivables by US$7.68b.
McCormick has a very large market capitalization of US$22.3b, 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 measure a company’s debt load relative to its earnings power by looking at its net debt divided by its earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) and by calculating how easily its earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) cover its interest expense (interest cover). 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).
McCormick has net debt to EBITDA of 3.9 suggesting it uses a fair bit of leverage to boost returns. On the plus side, its EBIT was 8.6 times its interest expense, and its net debt to EBITDA, was quite high, at 3.9. We saw McCormick grow its EBIT by 5.6% in the last twelve months. Whilst that hardly knocks our socks off it is a positive when it comes to debt. The balance sheet is clearly the area to focus on when you are analysing debt. But ultimately the future profitability of the business will decide if McCormick can strengthen its balance sheet over time.
Finally, while the tax-man may adore accounting profits, lenders only accept cold hard cash. So the logical step is to look at the proportion of that EBIT that is matched by actual free cash flow. Over the most recent three years, McCormick recorded free cash flow worth 71% of its EBIT, which is around normal, given free cash flow excludes interest and tax. This free cash flow puts the company in a good position to pay down debt, when appropriate.
Our View
McCormick’s conversion of EBIT to free cash flow was a real positive on this analysis, as was its interest cover. Having said that, its net debt to EBITDA somewhat sensitizes us to potential future risks to the balance sheet. Considering this range of data points, we think McCormick is in a good position to manage its debt levels. Having said that, the load is sufficiently heavy that we would recommend any shareholders keep a close eye on it. There’s no doubt that we learn most about debt from the balance sheet. However, not all investment risk resides within the balance sheet – far from it.