Debt to equity31 Mar 2020 10:49
Worst thing at the moment must be to have a lot of debt, even worse unserviceable debt. Once the proportion of hedged sales are complete they are either going to sell at market making a loss of 40$ a barrel or hedge at close to zero, meanwhile debt is rising and debt to equity is rising even faster. Do companies like Shell have Covenants? They could of course try selling parts of company into the global firestorm, good luck with that. No the easiest and least painful way to try to get a handle on debt, will be a cancelling or major reduction in dividend, just what our beleaguered Investment industry don’t want, some of whom may reduce holdings. Any major selling in this market will on bad days exacerbate falls, I can see this going to 600 fair value, 400p on a bad day. Sobering thought is that all oil majors are in the same holed boat.