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A company's debt-to-capital ratio or D/C ratio is the ratio of its total debt to its total capital, its debt and equity combined. The ratio measures a company's capital structure, financial solvency, and degree of leverage, at a particular point in time. [1] The data to calculate the ratio are found on the balance sheet.
The remaining long-term debt is used in the numerator of the long-term-debt-to-equity ratio. A similar ratio is debt-to-capital (D/C), where capital is the sum of debt and equity: D/C = total liabilities / total capital = debt / debt + equity The relationship between D/E and D/C is: D/C = D / D+E = D/E / 1 + D/E
Once management has decided how much debt should be used in the capital structure, decisions must be made as to the appropriate mix of short-term debt and long-term debt. Increasing the percentage of short-term debt can enhance a firm's financial flexibility, since the borrower's commitment to pay interest is for a shorter period of time.
Debt is more expensive. The cost of debt is lowest with secured, long-term loans or use of personal savings, higher with unsecured loans, credit card loans and cash advances, and with factoring accounts receivable. Equity financing is most expensive, and dilutes the value of existing owners' shares in the business.
The debt service coverage ratio is the ratio of income available to the amount of debt service due (including both interest and principal amortization, if any). The higher the debt service coverage ratio, the more income is available to pay debt service, and the easier and lower-cost it will be for a borrower to obtain financing.
Liquidity ratios measure the availability of cash to pay debt. [3] Efficiency (activity) ratios measure how quickly a firm converts non-cash assets to cash assets. [4] Debt ratios measure the firm's ability to repay long-term debt. [5] Market ratios measure investor response to owning a company's stock and also the cost of issuing stock. [6]
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The trade-off theory of capital structure is the idea that a company chooses how much debt finance and how much equity finance to use by balancing the costs and benefits. The classical version of the hypothesis goes back to Kraus and Litzenberger [ 1 ] who considered a balance between the dead-weight costs of bankruptcy and the tax saving ...