FTI Consulting (NYSE:FCN) 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.' 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. We can see that FTI Consulting, Inc. (NYSE:FCN) does use debt in its business. But should shareholders be worried about its use of debt?

Why Does Debt Bring Risk?

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. If things get really bad, the lenders can take control of the business. 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. The first thing to do when considering how much debt a business uses is to look at its cash and debt together.

See our latest analysis for FTI Consulting

What Is FTI Consulting's Debt?

The image below, which you can click on for greater detail, shows that at June 2020 FTI Consulting had debt of US$315.8m, up from US$290.5m in one year. However, it also had US$304.2m in cash, and so its net debt is US$11.6m.

How Strong Is FTI Consulting's Balance Sheet?

According to the last reported balance sheet, FTI Consulting had liabilities of US$517.5m due within 12 months, and liabilities of US$708.3m due beyond 12 months. Offsetting this, it had US$304.2m in cash and US$747.2m in receivables that were due within 12 months. So its liabilities outweigh the sum of its cash and (near-term) receivables by US$174.4m.

Since publicly traded FTI Consulting shares are worth a total of US$3.98b, it seems unlikely that this level of liabilities would be a major threat. Having said that, it's clear that we should continue to monitor its balance sheet, lest it change for the worse. Carrying virtually no net debt, FTI Consulting has a very light debt load indeed.

We measure a company's debt load relative to its earnings power by looking at its net debt divided by its earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) and by calculating how easily its earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) cover its interest expense (interest cover). 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).

FTI Consulting has very little debt (net of cash), and boasts a debt to EBITDA ratio of 0.037 and EBIT of 26.0 times the interest expense. So relative to past earnings, the debt load seems trivial. But the other side of the story is that FTI Consulting saw its EBIT decline by 2.0% over the last year. That sort of decline, if sustained, will obviously make debt harder to handle. The balance sheet is clearly the area to focus on when you are analysing debt. But ultimately the future profitability of the business will decide if FTI Consulting 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.

Finally, while the tax-man may adore accounting profits, lenders only accept cold hard cash. So we clearly need to look at whether that EBIT is leading to corresponding free cash flow. Over the most recent three years, FTI Consulting recorded free cash flow worth 78% of its EBIT, which is around normal, given free cash flow excludes interest and tax. This cold hard cash means it can reduce its debt when it wants to.

Our View

Happily, FTI Consulting's impressive interest cover implies it has the upper hand on its debt. But, on a more sombre note, we are a little concerned by its EBIT growth rate. Looking at the bigger picture, we think FTI Consulting's use of debt seems quite reasonable and we're not concerned about it. While debt does bring risk, when used wisely it can also bring a higher return on equity. 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. Take risks, for example - FTI Consulting has 1 warning sign we think you should be aware of.

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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