When Dividing Its Total Debt By Total Equity

What Is the Debt Ratio?

The term debt ratio refers to a financial ratio that measures the extent of a company’s leverage. The debt ratio is defined as the ratio of total debt to total assets, expressed as a decimal or percentage. It can be interpreted as the proportion of a company’s assets that are financed by debt.

A ratio greater than 1 shows that a considerable amount of a company’s assets are funded by debt, which means the company has more liabilities than assets. A high ratio indicates that a company may be at risk of default on its loans if interest rates suddenly rise. A ratio below 1 means that a greater portion of a company’s assets is funded by equity.

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Debt Ratio Formula and Calculation

As noted above, a company’s debt ratio is a measure of the extent of its financial leverage. This ratio varies widely across industries. Capital-intensive businesses, such as utilities and pipelines tend to have much higher debt ratios than others like the technology sector.

The formula for calculating a company’s debt ratio is:

Debt ratio = Total debt Total assets begin{aligned} &text{Debt ratio} = frac{text{Total debt}}{text{Total assets}} end{aligned} ​Debt ratio=Total assetsTotal debt​​

So if a company has total assets of $100 million and total debt of $30 million, its debt ratio is 0.3 or 30%. Is this company in a better financial situation than one with a debt ratio of 40%? The answer depends on the industry.

A debt ratio of 30% may be too high for an industry with volatile cash flows, in which most businesses take on little debt. A company with a high debt ratio relative to its peers would probably find it expensive to borrow and could find itself in a crunch if circumstances change. Conversely, a debt level of 40% may be easily manageable for a company in a sector such as utilities, where cash flows are stable and higher debt ratios are the norm.

A debt ratio greater than 1.0 (100%) tells you that a company has more debt than assets. Meanwhile, a debt ratio of less than 100% indicates that a company has more assets than debt. Used in conjunction with other measures of financial health, the debt ratio can help investors determine a company’s risk level.

Advantages and Disadvantages of the Debt Ratio

Pros of Debt Ratio

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The debt ratio is a simple ratio that is easy to compute and comprehend. It gives a fast overview of how much debt a firm has in comparison to all of its assets. Because public companies must report these figures as part of their periodic external reporting, the information is often readily available.

The debt ratio aids in determining a company’s capacity to service its long-term debt commitments. As discussed earlier, a lower debt ratio signifies that the business is more financially solid and lowers the chance of insolvency. With this information, investors can leverage historical data to make more informed investment decisions on where they think the company’s financial health may go.

Last, businesses in the same industry can be contrasted using their debt ratios. It offers a comparison point to determine whether a company’s debt levels are higher or lower than those of its competitors. As is the story with most financial ratios, you can take the calculation and compare it over time, against competitors, or against benchmarks to truly extract the most valuable information from the ratio.

Cons of Debt Ratio

There are also several downsides to the debt ratio as well. The debt ratio doesn’t reveal the type of debt or how much it will cost. The periods and interest rates of various debts may differ, which can have a substantial effect on a company’s financial stability. In addition, the debt ratio depends on accounting information which may construe or manipulate account balances as required for external reports.

The debt ratio does not take a company’s profitability into account. If its assets provide large earnings, a highly leveraged corporation may have a low debt ratio, making it less hazardous. Contrarily, if the company’s assets yield low returns, a low debt ratio does not automatically translate into profitability.

It’s great to compare debt ratios across companies; however, capital intensity and debt needs vary widely across sectors. The financial health of a firm may not be accurately represented by comparing debt ratios across industries. Bear in mind how certain industries may necessitate higher debt ratios due to the initial investment needed.

Last, the debt ratio is a constant indicator of a company’s financial standing at a certain moment in time. Acquisitions, sales, or changes in asset prices are just a few of the variables that might quickly affect the debt ratio. As a result, drawing conclusions purely based on historical debt ratios without taking into account future predictions may mislead analysts.

Special Considerations

Some sources consider the debt ratio to be total liabilities divided by total assets. This reflects a certain ambiguity between the terms debt and liabilities that depends on the circumstance. The debt-to-equity ratio, for example, is closely related to and more common than the debt ratio, instead, using total liabilities as the numerator.

Financial data providers calculate it using only long-term and short-term debt (including current portions of long-term debt), excluding liabilities such as accounts payable, negative goodwill, and others.

In the consumer lending and mortgage business, two common debt ratios used to assess a borrower’s ability to repay a loan or mortgage are the gross debt service ratio and the total debt service ratio.

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The gross debt ratio is defined as the ratio of monthly housing costs (including mortgage payments, home insurance, and property costs) to monthly income, while the total debt service ratio is the ratio of monthly housing costs plus other debt such as car payments and credit card borrowings to monthly income. Acceptable levels of the total debt service ratio range from the mid-30s to the low-40s in percentage terms.

Debt Ratio vs. Long-Term Debt to Asset Ratio

While the total debt to total assets ratio includes all debts, the long-term debt to assets ratio only takes into account long-term debts. The debt ratio (total debt to assets) measure takes into account both long-term debts, such as mortgages and securities, and current or short-term debts such as rent, utilities, and loans maturing in less than 12 months.

Both ratios, however, encompass all of a business’s assets, including tangible assets such as equipment and inventory and intangible assets such as copyrights and owned brands. Because the total debt to assets ratio includes more of a company’s liabilities, this number is almost always higher than a company’s long-term debt to assets ratio.

Examples of the Debt Ratio

Let’s look at a few examples from different industries to contextualize the debt ratio.

Starbucks

Starbucks (SBUX) listed $1.92 million in short-term and current portion of long-term debt on its balance sheet for the fiscal year ended Oct. 2, 2022, and $13.1 billion in long-term debt. The company’s total assets were $28 billion. This gives us Starbuck’s debt ratio of $15 billion ÷ $28 billion = 0.5357, or 53.6%.

To assess whether this is high, we should consider the capital expenditures that go into opening a Starbucks, including leasing commercial space, renovating it to fit a certain layout, and purchasing expensive specialty equipment, much of which is used infrequently. The company must also hire and train employees in an industry with exceptionally high employee turnover, adhere to food safety regulations for its more than 18,253 stores in 2022.

Perhaps 53.6% isn’t so bad after all when you consider that the industry average was about 75%. The result is that Starbucks has an easy time borrowing money—creditors trust that it is in a solid financial position and can be expected to pay them back in full.

Meta

What about a technology company? For the fiscal year ended Dec. 31, 2022, Meta (META), formerly Facebook, reported:

• Total debt as $14.69 billion
• Total assets as $185.7 billion

Using these figures, Meta’s debt ratio can be calculated as $14.69 billion ÷ $185.7 billion = 0.079, or 7.9%. The company does not borrow from the corporate bond market. It has an easy enough time raising capital through stock.

The Bottom Line

Debt ratio is a metric that measures a company’s total debt, as a percentage of its total assets. A high debt ratio indicates that a company is highly leveraged, and may have borrowed more money than it can easily pay back. Investors and accountants use debt ratios to assess the risk that a company is likely to default on its obligations.

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