Global Ship Lease (NYSE:GSL) Takes On Some Risk With Its Use Of Debt

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. We note that Global Ship Lease, Inc. (NYSE:GSL) does have debt on its balance sheet. But should shareholders be worried about its use of debt?

When Is Debt Dangerous?

Debt assists a business until the business has trouble paying it off, either with new capital or with free cash flow. Ultimately, if the company can't fulfill its legal obligations to repay debt, shareholders could walk away with nothing. While that is not too common, we often do see indebted companies permanently diluting shareholders because lenders force them to raise capital at a distressed price. Of course, the upside of debt is that it often represents cheap capital, especially when it replaces dilution in a company with the ability to reinvest at high rates of return. 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 Global Ship Lease

How Much Debt Does Global Ship Lease Carry?

The image below, which you can click on for greater detail, shows that at December 2021 Global Ship Lease had debt of US$892.1m, up from US$769.5m in one year. On the flip side, it has US$75.2m in cash leading to net debt of about US$816.9m.

A Look At Global Ship Lease's Liabilities

We can see from the most recent balance sheet that Global Ship Lease had liabilities of US$244.8m falling due within a year, and liabilities of US$1.04b due beyond that. Offsetting this, it had US$75.2m in cash and US$6.12m in receivables that were due within 12 months. So its liabilities total US$1.20b more than the combination of its cash and short-term receivables.

When you consider that this deficiency exceeds the company's US$946.0m market capitalization, you might well be inclined to review the balance sheet intently. 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.

Global Ship Lease's debt is 3.4 times its EBITDA, and its EBIT cover its interest expense 4.2 times over. This suggests that while the debt levels are significant, we'd stop short of calling them problematic. The silver lining is that Global Ship Lease grew its EBIT by 102% last year, which nourishing like the idealism of youth. If that earnings trend continues it will make its debt load much more manageable in the future. When analysing debt levels, the balance sheet is the obvious place to start. But it is future earnings, more than anything, that will determine Global Ship Lease's ability to maintain a healthy balance sheet going forward. So if you're focused on the future you can check out this free report showing analyst profit forecasts.

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, Global Ship Lease saw substantial negative free cash flow, in total. While investors are no doubt expecting a reversal of that situation in due course, it clearly does mean its use of debt is more risky.

Our View

Mulling over Global Ship Lease's attempt at converting EBIT to free cash flow, we're certainly not enthusiastic. But on the bright side, its EBIT growth rate is a good sign, and makes us more optimistic. Overall, we think it's fair to say that Global Ship Lease has enough debt that there are some real risks around the balance sheet. If all goes well, that should boost returns, but on the flip side, the risk of permanent capital loss is elevated by the debt. The balance sheet is clearly the area to focus on when you are analysing debt. But ultimately, every company can contain risks that exist outside of the balance sheet. To that end, you should learn about the 3 warning signs we've spotted with Global Ship Lease (including 1 which makes us a bit uncomfortable) .

If, after all that, you're more interested in a fast growing company with a rock-solid balance sheet, then check out our list of net cash growth stocks without delay.

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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.