LONG-TERM DEBT: Something that great companies don't have a lot of

LONG-TERM DEBT: SOMETHING THAT GREAT COMPANIES

DON'T HAVE A LOT OF

Balance Sheet/Liabilities
($ in millions)
Total Current Liabilities	$13,225
->Long-Term Debt	3,277
Deferred Income Tax	1,890
Minority Interest	0
Other Liabilities	3,133
Total Liabilities	$21,525

Long-term debt means debt that matures any time out past a year. On the balance sheet it comes under the heading of long-term liabilities. If the debt comes due within the year, it is short-term debt and is placed with the company's current liabilities. In Warren's search for the excellent business with a long-term competitive advantage, the amount of long-term debt a company carries on its books tells him a lot about the economic nature of the business.

Warren has learned that companies that have a durable competitive advantage often carry little or no long-term debt on their balance sheets. This is because these companies are so profitable that they are self-financing when they need to expand the business or make acquisitions, so there is never a need to borrow large sums of money.

One of the ways to help us identify the exceptional business, then, is to check how much long-term debt it is carrying on its balance sheet. We are not just interested in the current year; we want to look at the long-term debt load that the company has been carrying for the last ten years. If there have been ten years of operations with little or no long-term debt on the company's balance sheet it is a good bet that the company has some kind of strong competitive advantage working in its favor.

Warren's historic purchases indicate that on any given year the company should have sufficient yearly net earnings to pay off all of its long-term debt within a three-or four-year earnings period. Long-term competitive advantage holders Coca-Cola and Moody's could pay off all their long-term debt in a single year; and Wrigley and The Washington Post companies can do it in two.

But companies like GM or Ford, both in the highly competitive auto industry, could spend every dime of net profit they have earned in the last ten years and still not pay off the massive amount of long-term debt they carry on their balance sheets.

The bottom line here is that companies that have enough earning power to pay off their long-term debt in under three or four years are good candidates in our search for the excellent business with a long-term competitive advantage.

But please note: Because these companies are so profitable and carrying little or no debt, they are often the targets of leveraged buyouts. This is where the buyer borrows huge amounts of money against the cash flow of the company to finance the purchase. After the leveraged buyout the business is then saddled with large amounts of debt. This was the case with the RJR/Nabisco buyout in the late 1980s.

If all else indicates that the business in question is a company with a durable competitive advantage, but it has a ton of debt on its balance sheet, a leveraged buyout may have created the debt. In cases like these the company's bonds are often the better bet, in that the company's earning power will be focused on paying off the debt and not growing the company.

The rule here is simple: Little or No Long-Term Debt Often Means a Good Long-Term Bet.

Debt test of Warren Buffett

3 Quick Tests for a Business with a long-term Durable Competitive Advantage:

1.   Earning Test

2.   Return (Profit) Test and

3.   Debt test.

3. Debt Test

"One of the things you will find---which is interesting and people don't think of it enough---with most businesses and with most individuals, is life tends to snap you at your weakest link. The two biggest weak links in my  experience: I've seen more people fail because of liquor and leverage---leverage being borrowed money."

                                      Warren Buffett

   

     INTEREST EXPENSE: WHAT WARREN DOESN'T WANT

Income Statement
($ in millions)
Revenue	$10,000
Cost of Goods Sold	3,000
->Gross Profit	7,000
Operating Expenses
Selling, General & Admin.	2,100
Research & Development	1,000
Depreciation	700
Operating Profit	3,200
->Interest Expense	$200

Interest Expense is the entry for the interest paid out, during the quarter or year, on the debt the company carries on its balance sheet as a liability. While it is possible for a company to be earning more in interest than it is paying out, as with a bank, the vast majority of manufacturing and retail  businesses pay out far more in interest than they earn.

This is called a financial cost, not an operating cost, and it is isolated out on its own, because it is not tied to any production or sales process. Instead, interest is reflective of the total debt that the company is carrying on its books. The more debt the company has, the more interest it has to pay.

Companies with high interest payments relative to operating income tend to be one of two types: 

• a company that is in a fiercely competitive industry, where large capital expenditures are required for it to stay competitive, or 
• a company with excellent business economics that acquired the debt when the company was bought in a leveraged buyout.

What Warren has figured out is that companies with a durable competitive advantage often carry little or no interest expense. Long-term competitive advantage holder Procter & Gamble has to pay a mere 8 % of its operating income out in interest costs; the Wrigley Co. has to pay an average 7%; contrast those two companies with Goodyear, which is in the highly competitive and capital-intensive tire business. Goodyear has to pay, on average, 49% of its operating income out in interest payments.

Even in highly competitive businesses like the airline industry, the amount of the operating income paid out in interest can be used to identify companies with a competitive advantage. The consistently profitable Southwest Airlines pays just 9% of operating income in interest payments, while its in-and-out-of-bankruptcy competitor United Airlines pays 61% of its operating income out in interest payments. Southwest's other troubled competitor, American Airlines, pays a whopping 92% of its operating income out in interest payments.

As a rule, Warren's favorite durable competitive advantage holders in the consumer products category all have interest payouts of less than 15% of operating income. But be aware that the percentage of interest payments to operating income varies greatly from industry to industry. As an example: Wells Fargo, a bank in which Warren owns a 14% stake, pays out approximately 30% of its operating income in interest payments, which seems high compared with Coke's, but actually makes the bank, out of America's top five, the one with the lowest and most attractive ratio. Wells Fargo is also the only one with a AAA rating from Standard & Poor's.

The ratio of interest payments to operating income can also be very informative as to the level of economic danger that a company is in. Take the investment banking business, which on average makes interest payments in the neighborhood of 70% of its operating income. A careful eye would have picked up the fact that in 2006 Bear Stearns reported that it was paying out 70% of its operating income in interest payments, but that by the quarter that ended in November 2007, its percentage of interest payments to operating income had jumped to 230%. This means that it had to dip into its shareholders' equity to make up the difference. In a highly leveraged operation like Bear Stearns, that spelled disaster. By March of 2008 the once mighty Bear Stearns, whose shares had traded as high as $170 the year before, was being forced to merge with JP Morgan Chase & Co. for a mere $10 a share.

The rule here is real simple: In any given industry the company with the lowest ratio of interest payments to operating income is usually the company most likely to have the competitive advantage. In Warren's world, investing in the company with a durable competitive advantage is the only way to ensure that we are going to get rich over the long-term.

LONG-TERM INVESTMENTS: One of the secrets to Warren's success

LONG-TERM INVESTMENTS: ONE OF THE SECRETS TO WARREN'S SUCCESS

Balance Sheet/Assets
($ in millions)
Total Current Assets	$12,005
Property/Plant/Equipment	8,493
Goodwill, Net	4,246
Intangibles, Net	7,863
+ Long-Term Investments	7,777
Other Long-Term Assets	2,675
Total Assets	$43,059

This is an asset account on a company's balance sheet, where the value of long-term investments (longer than a year), such as stocks, bonds, and real estate is recorded. This account includes investments in the company's affiliates and subsidiaries. What is interesting about the long-term investment account is that this asset class is carried on the books at their cost or market price, whichever is lower. But it cannot be marked to a price above cost even if the investments have appreciated in value. This means that a company can have a very valuable asset that it is carrying on its books at a valuation considerably below its market price.

A company's long-term investments can tell us a lot about the investment mind-set of top management. Do they invest in other businesses that have durable competitive advantages, or do they invest in businesses that are in highly competitive markets? Sometimes we see the management of a wonderful business making huge investments in mediocre businesses for no other reason than they think big is better. Sometimes we see some enlightened manager of a mediocre business making investments in companies that have a durable competitive advantage. This is how Warren built his holding company Berkshire Hathaway into the empire that it is today. Berkshire was once-upon-a-time a mediocre business in the highly competitive textile industry. Warren bought a controlling interest, stopped paying the dividend so cash would accumulate, and then took the company's working capital and went and bought an insurance company. Then he took the assets of the insurance company and went on a forty-year shopping spree for companies with a durable competitive advantage.

Kiss even a frog of a business enough times with a durable competitive advantage and it will turn into a prince of a business.

Or, as in Warren's case, $60 billion, which is what his stock in Berkshire is now worth.

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Return on Shareholders' Equity

SHAREHOLDERS' EQUITY/BOOK VALUE

Balance Sheet/Shareholders' Equity
($ in millions)
Total Liabilities	$21,525
Preferred Stock	0
Common Stock	880
Additional Paid in Capital	7,378
Retained Earnings	36,235
Treasury Stock--Common	-23,375
Other Equity	626
Total Shareholders' Equity	21,744
Total Liabilities + Shareholders' Equity	$43,269

When you subtract all your liabilities from all your assets you get your net worth. If you take a company's total assets and subtract its total liabilities you get the net worth of the company, which is also known as the shareholders' equity or book value of the business. This is the amount of money that the company's owners/shareholders have initially put in and have left in the business to keep it running. Shareholders' Equity is accounted for under the headings of Capital Stock, which includes Preferred and Common Stock; Paid in Capital, and Retained Earnings. Add together Total Liabilities and Total Shareholders' Equity and you get a sum that should equal Total Assets, which is why it is called a balance sheet---both sides balance.

Why Shareholders' Equity is an important number to us is that it allows us to calculate the return on shareholders' equity, which is one of the ways we determine whether or not the company in question has a long-term competitive advantage working in its favor.

Let's check it out.

RETURN ON SHAREHOLDERS' EQUITY: PART ONE

Balance Sheet/Shareholders' Equity
($ in millions)
Preferred Stock	0
Common Stock	880
Additional Paid in Capital	7,378
Retained Earnings	36,235
Treasury Stock--Common	-23,375
Other Equity	626
Total Shareholders' Equity	21,744

Shareholders' equity is equal to the company's total assets minus its total liabilities. That happens to equal the total sums of preferred and common stock, plus paid in capital, plus retained earnings, less treasury stock.

Shareholders' equity has three sources. 

• One is the capital that was originally raised selling preferred and common stockto the public. 
• The second is any later sales of preferred and common stock to the public after the company is up and running. 
• The third, and most important to us, is the accumulation of retained earnings.

Since all equity belongs to the company, and since the company belongs to the common shareholders, the equity really belongs to the common shareholders, which is why it is called shareholders' equity.

Now if we are shareholders in a company, we would be very interested in how good a job management does at allocating our money, so we can earn even more. If they are bad at it we won't be very happy and might even sell our shares and put our money elsewhere. But if they are really good at it we might even buy more of the company, along with everyone else who is impressed with management's ability to profitably put shareholders' equity to good use. To this end, financial analysts developed the return on shareholders' equity equation to test management's efficiency in allocating the shareholders' money. This is an equation that Warren puts great stock in, in his search for the company with a durable competitive advantage, and it is the topic of our next chapter.

RETURN ON SHAREHOLDERS' EQUITY: PART Two

Calculation: Net Earnings divided by Shareholders' Equity equals Return on Shareholders' Equity.

What Warren discovered is that companies that benefit from a durable or long-term competitive advantage show higher-than-average returns on shareholders' equity. Warren's favorite, Coca-Cola, shows a return on shareholders' equity of 30%; Wrigley comes in at 24%; Hershey's earns a delicious 33%; and Pepsi measures in at 34%.

Shift over to a highly competitive business like the airlines, where no one company has a sustainable competitive advantage, and return on equity sinks dramatically. United Airlines, in a year that it makes money, comes in at 15 %, and American Airlines earns 4%. Delta Air Lines and Northwest don't earn anything because they don't earn any money.

High returns on equity mean that the company is making good use of the earnings that it is retaining. As time goes by, these high returns on equity will add up and increase the underlying value of the business, which, over time, will eventually be recognized by the stock market through an increasing price for the company's stock.

Please note: Some companies are so profitable that they don't need to retain any earnings, so they pay them all out to the shareholders. In these cases we will sometimes see a negative number for shareholders' equity. The danger here is that insolvent companies will also show a negative number for shareholders' equity. If the company shows a long history of strong net earnings, but shows a negative shareholders' equity, it is probably a company with a durable competitive advantage. If the company shows both negative shareholders' equity and a history of negative net earnings, we are probably dealing with a mediocre business that is getting beaten up by the competition.

So here is the rule: High returns on shareholders' equity means "come play." Low returns on shareholders' equity mean "stay away."

Got it? Okay, let's move on.

Gross Profit Margin: Key numbers for Warren in his search for long-term gold.

3 Quick Tests for a Business with a long-term Durable Competitive Advantage:

1.   Earning Test

2.   Return (Profit) Test and

3.   Debt test.

2. Return (Profit) Test

GROSS PROFIT/GROSS PROFIT MARGIN: KEY NUMBERS FOR WARREN IN His SEARCH FOR LONG-TERM GOLD

  

Income Statement
($ in millions)
-> Revenue	$10,000
Cost of Goods Sold	3,000
-> Gross Profit	$7,000

    Gross Profit $7,000 / Revenue $10,000 = Gross Profit Margin 70%

Now if we subtract from the company's total revenue the amount reported as its Cost of Goods Sold, we get the company's reported Gross Profit. An example: total revenue of $10 million less cost of goods sold of $3 million equals a gross profit of $7 million.

        Gross profit is how much money the company made off of total revenue after subtracting the costs of the raw goods and the labor used to make the goods. It doesn't include such categories as sales and administrative costs, depreciation, and the interest costs of running the business.

By itself, gross profit tells us very little, but we can use this number to calculate the company's gross profit margin, which can tell us a lot about the economic nature of the company.

The equation for determining gross profit margin is:

Gross Profit / Total Revenues = Gross Profit Margin

Warren's perspective is to look for companies that have some kind of durable competitive advantage---businesses that he can profit from over the long run. What he has found is that companies that have excellent long-term economics working in their favor tend to have consistently higher gross profit margins than those that don't.

Let me show you:

The gross profit margins of companies that Warren has already identified as having a durable competitive advantage include: Coca-Cola, which shows a consistent gross profit margin of 60% or better; the bond rating company Moody's, 73%; the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway, 61%; and the very chewable Wrigley Co., 51%.

Contrast these excellent businesses with several companies we know that have poor long-term economics, such as the in-and-out-of-bankruptcy United Airlines, which shows a gross profit margin of 14%; troubled auto maker General Motors, which comes in at a weak 21%; the once troubled, but now profitable U.S. Steel, at a not-so-strong 17%; and Goodyear Tyre---which runs in any weather, but in a bad economy is stuck at a not-very-impressive 20%.

In the tech world---a field Warren stays away from because he doesn't understand it---Microsoft shows a consistent gross profit margin of 79%, while Apple Inc. comes in at 33%. These percentages indicate that Microsoft produces better economics selling operating systems and software than Apple does selling hardware and services.

What creates a high gross profit margin is the company's durable competitive advantage, which allows it the freedom to price the products and services it sells well in excess of its cost of goods sold. Without a competitive advantage, companies have to compete by lowering the price of the product or service they are selling. That drop, of course, lowers their profit margins and therefore their profitability.

As a very general rule (and there are exceptions): Companies with gross profit margins of 40% or better tend to be companies with some sort of durable competitive advantage. Companies with gross profit margins below 40% tend to be companies in highly competitive industries, where competition is hurting overall profit margins (there are exceptions here, too). Any gross profit margin of 20% and below is usually a good indicator of a fiercely competitive industry, where no one company can create a sustainable competitive advantage over the competition. And a company in a fiercely competitive industry, without some kind of competitive advantage working in its favor, is never going to make us rich over the long run.

While the gross profit margin test is not fail-safe, it is one of the early indicators that the company in question has some kind of consistent durable competitive advantage. Warren strongly emphasizes the word "durable," and to be on the safe side we should track the annual gross profit margins for the last ten years to ensure that the "consistency" is there. Warren knows that when we look for companies with a durable competitive advantage, "consistency" is the name of the game.

Now there are a number of ways that a company with a high gross profit margin can go astray and be stripped of its long-term competitive advantage. One of these is high research costs, another is high selling and administrative costs, and a third is high interest costs on debt. Any one of these three costs can destroy the long-term economics of the business. These are called operating expenses, and they are the thorn in the side of every business.