Debt to Asset Ratio: Definition & Formula

It should support the company’s ability to meet its financial obligations, maintain financial stability, and enable sustainable growth. Comparing a company’s ratio to industry peers, historical performance, and industry averages can provide valuable insights to determine what is considered favorable within a specific sector. The debt to asset ratio is calculated by dividing a company’s total debts by its total assets. As a rule of thumb, investors and creditors often look for a company that has less than 0.5 of debt to asset ratio. However, to determine whether the ratio is high or low, they also need to consider what type of industry the company is categorized in.

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. Our writing and editorial staff are a team of experts holding advanced financial designations and have written for most major financial media publications. Our work has been directly cited by organizations including MarketWatch, Bloomberg, Axios, TechCrunch, Forbes, NerdWallet, GreenBiz, Reuters, and many others. This team of experts helps Carbon Collective maintain the highest level of accuracy and professionalism possible. The articles and research support materials available on this site are educational and are not intended to be investment or tax advice. All such information is provided solely for convenience purposes only and all users thereof should be guided accordingly.

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For reference, the overall market has debt to asset ratios that average between 0.61 to 0.66 over the last five years. Our work has been directly cited by organizations including Entrepreneur, Business Insider, Investopedia, Forbes, CNBC, and many others. This team of experts helps Finance Strategists maintain the highest level of accuracy and professionalism possible. This may be advantageous for creditors because they are likely to get their money back if the company defaults on loans.

The debt to asset ratio is a measure of how much leverage a company uses to finance its assets. You can use the debt to asset calculator below to quickly measure how much leverage a company uses to finance its assets using debts by entering the required numbers. As with all financial metrics, a “good ratio” is dependent upon many factors, including the nature of the industry, the company’s lifecycle stage, and management preference (among others). As we analyze each company, we can use the debt to asset ratio to analyze how much debt a company carries, its ability to repay that debt, and its likelihood of taking on additional debt. In this case, the company is not as financially stable and will have difficulty repaying creditors if it cannot generate enough income from its assets. The company in this situation is highly leveraged which means that it is more susceptible to bankruptcy if it cannot repay its lenders.

Showcasing You Understand the Debt Ratio on Your Resume

It means a company is using cash flow from loans as resources to improve their productivity. The debt ratio is a financial metric that compares a business’ total debt to total assets. It’s a crucial ratio that analysts and finance professionals use to assess a company’s financial health. In this article, we’ll review the debt ratio and why it is an essential concept for students interested in corporate finance. For total assets, you can also get the number by summing the company’s equity and total liabilities.

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. A good debt ratio should align with the company’s financial goals, risk tolerance, and industry standards.

Who Uses the Debt Ratio?

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• The debt ratio is valuable for evaluating a company’s financial structure and risk profile.
• The debt to asset ratio measures that debt level and assesses how impactful that might be for any company.
• The most obvious flaw is that intangible assets aren’t included in the total assets.
• You can get as granular as you want to subtract out goodwill, intangibles, and cash, but you need to be consistent with that process if you choose to go that direction.
• Looking at the raw number on the balance sheet won’t tell you much without context.

Total assets may include both current and non-current assets, or certain assets only depending on the discretion of the analyst. This measure is closely watched by lenders and creditors since they want to know whether the company owes more money than it possesses. Even if a company has a ratio close to 100%, this simply means the company has decided to not to issue much (if any) stock.

As noted above, a company’s debt ratio is a measure of the extent of its financial leverage. Capital-intensive businesses, such as utilities and pipelines tend to have much higher debt ratios than others like the technology sector. The debt to asset ratio is important because it provides a measure of how a company is financed and how risky it might be to invest in or lend money to. The debt to asset ratio indicates how much a company is leveraged and how likely it is to be able to repay its debts in the future. From this result, we can see that the company is taking a risky approach to financing its operation by possibly biting off more debt than it can chew. You can tell this because the company has more debts than equity in its assets (more than 0.5 of debt to asset ratio).

Limitations of the Total-Debt-to-Total-Assets Ratio

Investors use the ratio to evaluate whether the company has enough funds to meet its current debt obligations and to assess whether the company can pay a return on its investment. Creditors use the ratio to see how much debt the company already has and whether the company can repay its existing debt. This will determine whether additional loans will be extended to the firm. Debt servicing payments must be made under all circumstances, otherwise, the company would breach its debt covenants and run the risk of being forced into bankruptcy by creditors. While other liabilities such as accounts payable and long-term leases can be negotiated to some extent, there is very little “wiggle room” with debt covenants.

A ratio below 1 means that a greater portion of a company’s assets is funded by equity. In other words, investors often try to assess if the value of investments to the company—usually in the form of stocks—will potentially go up or go down in the long run. Debt to asset is also sometimes referred to as the debt ratio since they have a very similar formula. It represents the proportion (or the percentage of) assets that are financed by interest bearing liabilities, as opposed to being funded by suppliers or shareholders. As a result it’s slightly more popular with lenders, who are less likely to extend additional credit to a borrower with a very high debt to asset ratio. The debt to asset ratio varies for different industries and business models.

Hertz may find the demands of investors are too great to secure financing, turning to financial institutions for its capital instead. A ratio below 0.5, meanwhile, indicates that a greater portion of a company’s assets is funded by equity. This often gives a company more flexibility, as companies can increase, decrease, pause, or cancel future dividend plans to shareholders. Alternatively, once locked into debt obligations, a company is often legally bound to that agreement. 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.

In general, a ratio around 0.3 to 0.6 is where many investors will feel comfortable, though a company’s specific situation may yield different results. For example, in the example above, Hertz is reporting $2.9 billion of intangible assets, $611 million of PPE, and $1.04 billion of goodwill as part of its total $20.9 billion of assets. Therefore, the company has more debt on its books than all of its current assets. Should all of its debts be called immediately by lenders, the company would be unable to pay all its debt, even if the total-debt-to-total-assets ratio indicates it might be able to. If the calculation yields a result greater than 1, this means the company is technically insolvent as it has more liabilities than all of its assets combined. More often, the total-debt-to-total assets ratio will be less than one.

However, what constitutes a “good debt ratio” can vary depending on industry norms, business objectives, and economic conditions. For instance, startups or companies in rapid expansion phases, too, may have higher ratios as they utilize debt to fund growth initiatives. While a higher ratio can be acceptable, carefully analyzing the company’s ability to generate sufficient cash flows to service the debt is essential. If you want your company to appeal to potential investors, lower your debt ratio. The bigger the gap between these two numbers, the better your ratio is.

FAQs About Total-Debt-to-Total-Assets Ratio

This ratio shows the proportion of company assets that are financed by creditors through loans, mortgages, and other forms of debt. A debt to asset ratio higher than 1 indicates that the company took on more debt than the value of its assets. It’s possible that the assets the company acquired haven’t delivered a return and were written off. However, the company still must service the liability it took on to acquire the asset. When the debt ratio is very high, the total liability is often more than the cash flow gained from existing assets. This is highly risky, and such debt to asset ratios are common for companies on the brink of bankruptcy.