Is BDCC able to repay short-term creditors? The current ratio can help answer this question. It expresses working capital as a proportion of current assets to current liabilities and is calculated as:
The relevant BDCC financial data required to calculate this ratio is taken from the balance sheet, as follows:
This ratio indicates how many current asset dollars are available to pay current liabilities at a point in time. The expression “1.14:1” is read, “1.14 to 1.” In this case it means that at December 31, 2021, $1.14 of current assets exist to pay each $1 of current liabilities. This ratio is difficult to interpret in isolation. There are two types of additional information that could help. First, what is the trend within BDCC over the last three years? The ratio declined between 2019 and 2020 (from 1.91 to 1.07), then recovered slightly between the end of 2020 and 2021 (from 1.07 to 1.14). The overall decline may be a cause for concern, as it indicates that in 2021 BDCC had fewer current assets to satisfy current liabilities as they became due.
A second interpretation aid would be to compare BDCC’s current ratio to a similar company or that of BDCC’s industry as a whole. Information is available from various trade publications and business analysts’ websites that assemble financial ratio information for a wide range of industries.
Some analysts consider that a corporation should maintain a 2:1 current ratio, depending on the industry in which the firm operates. The reasoning is that, if there were $2 of current assets to pay each $1 of current liabilities, the company should still be able to pay its current liabilities as they become due, even in the event of a business downturn. However, it is recognized that no one current ratio is applicable to all entities; other factors—such as the composition of current assets—must also be considered to arrive at an acceptable ratio. This is illustrated below.
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