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 Afya Limited (NASDAQ:AFYA) does use debt in its business. But the real question is whether this debt is making the company risky.
When Is Debt A Problem?
Debt assists a business until the business has trouble paying it off, either with new capital or with free cash flow. Part and parcel of capitalism is the process of 'creative destruction' where failed businesses are mercilessly liquidated by their bankers. 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. When we think about a company's use of debt, we first look at cash and debt together.
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How Much Debt Does Afya Carry?
As you can see below, at the end of June 2019, Afya had R$98.5m of debt, up from R$3.93m a year ago. Click the image for more detail. However, it also had R$68.7m in cash, and so its net debt is R$29.8m.
How Healthy Is Afya's Balance Sheet?
We can see from the most recent balance sheet that Afya had liabilities of R$388.9m falling due within a year, and liabilities of R$473.9m due beyond that. Offsetting this, it had R$68.7m in cash and R$130.4m in receivables that were due within 12 months. So its liabilities outweigh the sum of its cash and (near-term) receivables by R$663.7m.
Given Afya has a market capitalization of R$9.45b, it's hard to believe these liabilities pose much threat. But there are sufficient liabilities that we would certainly recommend shareholders continue to monitor the balance sheet, going forward. Carrying virtually no net debt, Afya has a very light debt load indeed.
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.
Afya has a low net debt to EBITDA ratio of only 0.16. And its EBIT easily covers its interest expense, being 12.8 times the size. So you could argue it is no more threatened by its debt than an elephant is by a mouse. Even more impressive was the fact that Afya grew its EBIT by 110% over twelve months. If maintained that growth will make the debt even more manageable in the years ahead. 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 Afya 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.