Does Otter Tail (NASDAQ:OTTR) Have A Healthy Balance Sheet?

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, Otter Tail Corporation (NASDAQ:OTTR) does carry debt. But the more important question is: how much risk is that debt creating?

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. 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. 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 Otter Tail

What Is Otter Tail's Debt?

The image below, which you can click on for greater detail, shows that at March 2021 Otter Tail had debt of US$879.5m, up from US$744.5m in one year. And it doesn't have much cash, so its net debt is about the same.

How Strong Is Otter Tail's Balance Sheet?

We can see from the most recent balance sheet that Otter Tail had liabilities of US$459.4m falling due within a year, and liabilities of US$1.27b due beyond that. Offsetting this, it had US$1.21m in cash and US$134.4m in receivables that were due within 12 months. So its liabilities outweigh the sum of its cash and (near-term) receivables by US$1.60b.

This is a mountain of leverage relative to its market capitalization of US$1.99b. This suggests shareholders would be heavily diluted if the company needed to shore up its balance sheet in a hurry.

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).

Otter Tail's debt is 3.7 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. However, one redeeming factor is that Otter Tail grew its EBIT at 16% over the last 12 months, boosting its ability to handle its debt. There's no doubt that we learn most about debt from the balance sheet. But ultimately the future profitability of the business will decide if Otter Tail can strengthen its balance sheet over time. So if you're focused on the future you can check out this free report showing analyst profit forecasts.

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. During the last three years, Otter Tail burned a lot of cash. 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

We'd go so far as to say Otter Tail's conversion of EBIT to free cash flow was disappointing. But on the bright side, its EBIT growth rate is a good sign, and makes us more optimistic. It's also worth noting that Otter Tail is in the Electric Utilities industry, which is often considered to be quite defensive. Once we consider all the factors above, together, it seems to us that Otter Tail's debt is making it a bit risky. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but we'd generally feel more comfortable with less leverage. There's no doubt that we learn most about debt from the balance sheet. However, not all investment risk resides within the balance sheet - far from it. For example - Otter Tail has 2 warning signs we think you should be aware of.

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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