Cash Flow-to-Debt Ratio
Paying your bills and having cash on hand: It’s what separates you from Nicolas Cage.
If you’re measuring how much money you have coming in versus how much debt you have on your balance sheet, you’re more responsible than 98% of Americans.
This measurement, known as cash flow-to-debt ratio, is a metric that helps us know whether a person or company can stay liquid and meet its obligations. This is probably one of the most important ratios related to the capital structure of a company, as it’s a major proxy of knowing when it’s time to expand and when it’s time to...tighten the belt.
Measuring cash flow-to-debt tells us how much a firm is relying on debt to operate (because debt has additional costs, like interest, and reduces leverage potential as debt levels increase).
But there is such a thing as having too little debt. A low cash flow-to-debt ratio indicates that a company isn’t using one of the most powerful tools it can use to expand its business: Another person’s money.
Related or Semi-related Video
Finance: What is the Debt-to-Equity Rati...11 Views
finance a la shmoop what is the debt to equity ratio? well simply put this ratio
answers the question who owns the company like if the debt to equity ratio
is high like there's tons of debt and very little equity well, then
essentially the bank or whoever the lenders are owned the company or at [Assets transfer to bank]
least the lion's share of the assets comprising it the opposite is true as
well of course and you can imagine a well-heeled company with tons of cash
and other assets like land and oil wells and Technology IP and no debt well they
could have a debt to equity ratio of zero so why do you even track this kind
of ratio well when companies are young they tend to not have tons of equity and
over time as they grow and get good at whatever it is they do they will [Clock rapidly ticks forward]
accumulate valuable assets like cash which are tracked as equity or
shareholders equity on the balance sheet that lives right here think about it if [Balance sheet appears]
this side is assets and this side is liabilities well if you're subtracting
liabilities from assets and you still have a lot of assets left over that's a
good thing and that line is tracked right here in the shareholders equity [Shareholders equity highlighted on balance sheet]
line ..........
you have a company with two billion dollars in debt at 5% interest costing a
hundred million bucks a year to rent if the company's shareholders equity is
just 50 million dollars well, the company is essentially owned
predominantly by its debt holders or lenders should something go wrong even a [A bank vault full of money]
little bit wrong well the company will go bankrupt the debt holders would own all
that equity and well spin this around and if the company's equity comprises 10
billion dollars of cash and a bunch of other assets for a total of 20 billion
of equity well then you can imagine the debt to equity ratio of just 10% that's
the equity holders of the company, they'll sleep like babies [Man taking a nap]
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