Is Sweco (STO:SWEC B) A Risky Investment?

Warren Buffett famously said, '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. Importantly, Sweco AB (publ) (STO:SWEC B) does carry debt. But the real question is whether this debt is making the company risky.

When Is Debt A Problem?

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 usual (but still expensive) situation is where a company must dilute shareholders at a cheap share price simply to get debt under control. Having said that, the most common situation is where a company manages its debt reasonably well - and to its own advantage. When we think about a company's use of debt, we first look at cash and debt together.

Check out our latest analysis for Sweco

What Is Sweco's Debt?

You can click the graphic below for the historical numbers, but it shows that as of June 2022 Sweco had kr2.63b of debt, an increase on kr2.42b, over one year. However, it does have kr619.0m in cash offsetting this, leading to net debt of about kr2.01b.

How Healthy Is Sweco's Balance Sheet?

We can see from the most recent balance sheet that Sweco had liabilities of kr7.16b falling due within a year, and liabilities of kr5.01b due beyond that. On the other hand, it had cash of kr619.0m and kr8.03b worth of receivables due within a year. So its liabilities total kr3.53b more than the combination of its cash and short-term receivables.

Given Sweco has a market capitalization of kr38.1b, it's hard to believe these liabilities pose much threat. However, we do think it is worth keeping an eye on its balance sheet strength, as it may change over time.

In order to size up a company's debt relative to its earnings, we calculate its net debt divided by its earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) and its earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) divided by its interest expense (its interest cover). Thus we consider debt relative to earnings both with and without depreciation and amortization expenses.

Sweco has a low net debt to EBITDA ratio of only 0.80. And its EBIT easily covers its interest expense, being 35.7 times the size. So you could argue it is no more threatened by its debt than an elephant is by a mouse. And we also note warmly that Sweco grew its EBIT by 19% last year, making its debt load easier to handle. 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 Sweco'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 we clearly need to look at whether that EBIT is leading to corresponding free cash flow. Over the last three years, Sweco actually produced more free cash flow than EBIT. There's nothing better than incoming cash when it comes to staying in your lenders' good graces.

Our View

Happily, Sweco's impressive interest cover implies it has the upper hand on its debt. And the good news does not stop there, as its conversion of EBIT to free cash flow also supports that impression! Overall, we don't think Sweco is taking any bad risks, as its debt load seems modest. So we're not worried about the use of a little leverage on the balance sheet. The balance sheet is clearly the area to focus on when you are analysing debt. However, not all investment risk resides within the balance sheet - far from it. Be aware that Sweco is showing 1 warning sign in our investment analysis , you should know about...

If you're interested in investing in businesses that can grow profits without the burden of debt, then check out this free list of growing businesses that have net cash on the balance sheet.

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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.