Bouygues (EPA:EN) 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.' 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. We can see that Bouygues SA (EPA:EN) does use debt in its business. But the more important question is: how much risk is that debt creating?

What Risk Does Debt Bring?

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 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, plenty of companies use debt to fund growth, without any negative consequences. When we think about a company's use of debt, we first look at cash and debt together.

See our latest analysis for Bouygues

How Much Debt Does Bouygues Carry?

You can click the graphic below for the historical numbers, but it shows that as of September 2021 Bouygues had €6.98b of debt, an increase on €6.40b, over one year. On the flip side, it has €4.34b in cash leading to net debt of about €2.64b.

How Healthy Is Bouygues' Balance Sheet?

The latest balance sheet data shows that Bouygues had liabilities of €21.3b due within a year, and liabilities of €9.34b falling due after that. Offsetting these obligations, it had cash of €4.34b as well as receivables valued at €14.1b due within 12 months. So its liabilities total €12.1b more than the combination of its cash and short-term receivables.

Given this deficit is actually higher than the company's massive market capitalization of €11.6b, we think shareholders really should watch Bouygues's debt levels, like a parent watching their child ride a bike for the first time. Hypothetically, extremely heavy dilution would be required if the company were forced to pay down its liabilities by raising capital at the current share price.

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). Thus we consider debt relative to earnings both with and without depreciation and amortization expenses.

With net debt sitting at just 0.72 times EBITDA, Bouygues is arguably pretty conservatively geared. And it boasts interest cover of 8.5 times, which is more than adequate. On top of that, Bouygues grew its EBIT by 38% 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 it is future earnings, more than anything, that will determine Bouygues'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, while the tax-man may adore accounting profits, lenders only accept cold hard cash. So it's worth checking how much of that EBIT is backed by free cash flow. During the last three years, Bouygues produced sturdy free cash flow equating to 65% of its EBIT, about what we'd expect. This free cash flow puts the company in a good position to pay down debt, when appropriate.

Our View

On our analysis Bouygues's EBIT growth rate 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 example, its level of total liabilities makes us a little nervous about its debt. When we consider all the elements mentioned above, it seems to us that Bouygues is managing its debt quite well. But a word of caution: we think debt levels are high enough to justify ongoing monitoring. Given Bouygues has a strong balance sheet is profitable and pays a dividend, it would be good to know how fast its dividends are growing, if at all. You can find out instantly by clicking this link.

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.

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This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.