These 4 Measures Indicate That ENGIE (EPA:ENGI) Is Using Debt Extensively

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 might be obvious that you need to consider debt, when you think about how risky any given stock is, because too much debt can sink a company. Importantly, ENGIE SA (EPA:ENGI) does carry debt. But the more important question is: how much risk is that debt creating?

When Is Debt A Problem?

Debt is a tool to help businesses grow, but if a business is incapable of paying off its lenders, then it exists at their mercy. In the worst case scenario, a company can go bankrupt if it cannot pay its creditors. However, a more usual (but still expensive) situation is where a company must dilute shareholders at a cheap share price simply to get debt under control. Of course, plenty of companies use debt to fund growth, without any negative consequences. When we examine debt levels, we first consider both cash and debt levels, together.

View our latest analysis for ENGIE

What Is ENGIE's Debt?

The chart below, which you can click on for greater detail, shows that ENGIE had €35.9b in debt in December 2020; about the same as the year before. However, it does have €20.7b in cash offsetting this, leading to net debt of about €15.2b.

How Strong Is ENGIE's Balance Sheet?

According to the last reported balance sheet, ENGIE had liabilities of €54.0b due within 12 months, and liabilities of €65.3b due beyond 12 months. Offsetting these obligations, it had cash of €20.7b as well as receivables valued at €30.4b due within 12 months. So it has liabilities totalling €68.2b more than its cash and near-term receivables, combined.

The deficiency here weighs heavily on the €29.2b company itself, as if a child were struggling under the weight of an enormous back-pack full of books, his sports gear, and a trumpet. So we'd watch its balance sheet closely, without a doubt. At the end of the day, ENGIE would probably need a major re-capitalization if its creditors were to demand repayment.

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).

ENGIE has net debt worth 1.9 times EBITDA, which isn't too much, but its interest cover looks a bit on the low side, with EBIT at only 6.4 times the interest expense. It seems that the business incurs large depreciation and amortisation charges, so maybe its debt load is heavier than it would first appear, since EBITDA is arguably a generous measure of earnings. Unfortunately, ENGIE's EBIT flopped 15% over the last four quarters. If that sort of decline is not arrested, then the managing its debt will be harder than selling broccoli flavoured ice-cream for a premium. There's no doubt that we learn most about debt from the balance sheet. But it is future earnings, more than anything, that will determine ENGIE'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, a company can only pay off debt with cold hard cash, not accounting profits. So it's worth checking how much of that EBIT is backed by free cash flow. In the last three years, ENGIE's free cash flow amounted to 44% of its EBIT, less than we'd expect. That weak cash conversion makes it more difficult to handle indebtedness.

Our View

We'd go so far as to say ENGIE's level of total liabilities was disappointing. But at least it's pretty decent at covering its interest expense with its EBIT; that's encouraging. We should also note that Integrated Utilities industry companies like ENGIE commonly do use debt without problems. We're quite clear that we consider ENGIE to be really rather risky, as a result of its balance sheet health. For this reason we're pretty cautious about the stock, and we think shareholders should keep a close eye on its liquidity. When analysing debt levels, the balance sheet is the obvious place to start. However, not all investment risk resides within the balance sheet - far from it. These risks can be hard to spot. Every company has them, and we've spotted 1 warning sign for ENGIE you should know about.

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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