Yahoo Finance Is National Presto Industries Inc (NYSE:NPK) A Financially Sound Company?
The direct benefit for National Presto Industries Inc (NYSE:NPK), which sports a zero-debt capital structure, to include debt in its capital structure is the reduced cost of capital. However, the trade-off is NPK will have to adhere to stricter debt covenants and have less financial flexibility. While NPK has no debt on its balance sheet, it doesn’t necessarily mean it exhibits financial strength. I recommend you look at the following hurdles to assess NPK’s financial health.
See our latest analysis for National Presto Industries
Is NPK right in choosing financial flexibility over lower cost of capital?
Debt capital generally has lower cost of capital compared to equity funding. But the downside of having debt in a company’s balance sheet is the debtholder’s higher claim on its assets in the case of liquidation, as well as stricter capital management requirements. The lack of debt on NPK’s balance sheet may be because it does not have access to cheap capital, or it may believe this trade-off is not worth it. Choosing financial flexibility over capital returns make sense if NPK is a high-growth company. NPK’s revenue growth over the past year is a single-digit 1.0% which is relatively low for a small-cap company. More capital can help the business grow faster. If NPK is not expecting exceptional future growth, then the decision to avoid may cost shareholders in the long term.
Can NPK meet its short-term obligations with the cash in hand?
Since National Presto Industries doesn’t have any debt on its balance sheet, it doesn’t have any solvency issues, which is a term used to describe the company’s ability to meet its long-term obligations. However, another measure of financial health is its short-term obligations, which is known as liquidity. These include payments to suppliers, employees and other stakeholders. Looking at NPK’s US$50m in current liabilities, it appears that the company has maintained a safe level of current assets to meet its obligations, with the current ratio last standing at 6.62x. However, a ratio above 3x may be considered excessive by some investors, yet this is not usually a major negative for a company.
Next Steps:
NPK is a fast-growing firm, which supports having have zero-debt and financial freedom to continue to ramp up growth. This may mean this is an optimal capital structure for the business, given that it is also meeting its short-term commitment. In the future, its financial position may change. Keep in mind I haven’t considered other factors such as how NPK has been performing in the past. I recommend you continue to research National Presto Industries to get a more holistic view of the stock by looking at:
Future Outlook: What are well-informed industry analysts predicting for NPK’s future growth? Take a look at our free research report of analyst consensus for NPK’s outlook.
Valuation: What is NPK worth today? Is the stock undervalued, even when its growth outlook is factored into its intrinsic value? The intrinsic value infographic in our free research report helps visualize whether NPK is currently mispriced by the market.
Other High-Performing Stocks: Are there other stocks that provide better prospects with proven track records? Explore our free list of these great stocks here.
To help readers see past the short term volatility of the financial market, we aim to bring you a long-term focused research analysis purely driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis does not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements.
The author is an independent contributor and at the time of publication had no position in the stocks mentioned. For errors that warrant correction please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com.
