Rapid7 (NASDAQ:RPD) Is Making Moderate Use Of Debt

Some say volatility, rather than debt, is the best way to think about risk as an investor, but Warren Buffett famously said that 'Volatility is far from synonymous with risk.' It's only natural to consider a company's balance sheet when you examine how risky it is, since debt is often involved when a business collapses. As with many other companies Rapid7, Inc. (NASDAQ:RPD) makes use of debt. But the real question is whether this debt is making the company risky.

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. Ultimately, if the company can't fulfill its legal obligations to repay debt, shareholders could walk away with nothing. However, a more common (but still painful) scenario is that it has to raise new equity capital at a low price, thus permanently diluting shareholders. Having said that, the most common situation is where a company manages its debt reasonably well - and to its own advantage. The first step when considering a company's debt levels is to consider its cash and debt together.

Check out our latest analysis for Rapid7

How Much Debt Does Rapid7 Carry?

As you can see below, at the end of June 2020, Rapid7 had US$368.2m of debt, up from US$179.8m a year ago. Click the image for more detail. On the flip side, it has US$315.7m in cash leading to net debt of about US$52.5m.

How Strong Is Rapid7's Balance Sheet?

We can see from the most recent balance sheet that Rapid7 had liabilities of US$280.0m falling due within a year, and liabilities of US$489.7m due beyond that. Offsetting these obligations, it had cash of US$315.7m as well as receivables valued at US$78.3m due within 12 months. So its liabilities outweigh the sum of its cash and (near-term) receivables by US$375.7m.

Given Rapid7 has a market capitalization of US$3.23b, 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. There's no doubt that we learn most about debt from the balance sheet. But ultimately the future profitability of the business will decide if Rapid7 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.

Over 12 months, Rapid7 reported revenue of US$368m, which is a gain of 30%, although it did not report any earnings before interest and tax. With any luck the company will be able to grow its way to profitability.

Caveat Emptor

Even though Rapid7 managed to grow its top line quite deftly, the cold hard truth is that it is losing money on the EBIT line. To be specific the EBIT loss came in at US$57.1m. Considering that alongside the liabilities mentioned above does not give us much confidence that company should be using so much debt. So we think its balance sheet is a little strained, though not beyond repair. However, it doesn't help that it burned through US$18.7m of cash over the last year. So suffice it to say we do consider the stock to be risky. There's no doubt that we learn most about debt from the balance sheet. But ultimately, every company can contain risks that exist outside of the balance sheet. To that end, you should learn about the 4 warning signs we've spotted with Rapid7 (including 1 which is makes us a bit uncomfortable) .

Of course, if you're the type of investor who prefers buying stocks without the burden of debt, then don't hesitate to discover our exclusive list of net cash growth stocks, today.

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