Johnston said a major restructuring had cut its "cost base and its net debt significantly".
It has huge profit margins and returns on equity, and has no net debt.
Net debt is down from nearly five times pre-tax profits to less than three.
Excluding its listed finance arm, its net debt is 1.9 times its gross operating profit.
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Reducing net debt will boost equity value in the absence of any dilution from the capital raises.
It says that net debt as a share of the economy has to be falling in 2015-16.
Foster recommends focusing on firms with net debt of less than two times cash flow as measured by Ebitda.
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And that company has no net debt but very little net cash too.
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"There's no question that our net debt levels give us a disadvantage to our competitors because of the interest, " said Mulally.
The latter is defined as enterprise value (market value plus net debt) divided by earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization.
It admits to being more highly geared (its net debt-to-equity ratio is 95% and rising), but not to being more risky.
The latter metric, which measures a company's market value, plus net debt, to its revenues, makes Opnet look cheaper at just 1.5.
Public Sector Net Debt was 40.6% in 1997-8 and 36.5% in 2007-8.
Neither the current budget balance nor net debt would have been increased.
If it grows even one percentage point faster than GDP in future, the effect on public-sector net debt would be huge (see chart).
Assume, for example, that the government wanted to bring net debt back to the old Gordon Brown target of 40 per cent of GDP.
However, if we change the net debt amount to zero and perform a similar experiment, the overall company value would increase by only 24%.
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Investors know of course that lower revenue and more working capital in the months ahead equates to a lower enterprise value (equity plus net debt).
As most options traders know, the only risk associated with a bull call spread is the net debt incurred by entering the position.
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Nabors also sports a cash-rich balance sheet with 12% net debt.
Carrefour has cut its net debt by 2.6bn euros to 4.32bn.
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Net debt - on the traditional, internationally comparable measure - rises inexorably from 60% of GDP in the mid 2020s, to 107% and rising by 2060.
Britain's total net debt is not much over 30% of GDP at present, compared with more than 40% in America and 54% in the euro area.
But it added that UK public sector net debt was projected to be high by recent historical standards - still more than 70% of GDP in 2017-18.
And with net debt 6.3 times higher than profits before interest, tax and depreciation, says Sanford Bernstein, a research firm, buying Adelphia would strain Cablevision's balance sheet.
But extra borrowing along these lines could make it harder to meet the second fiscal rule, which says that Public Sector Net Debt must be falling in 2015-16.
The ratio of net debt to adjusted EBITDA from 2013 through 2015 is to remain within the range of 2.0 to 2.5 as in the previous three years.
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In the first half of this financial year, its net debt rose by euro400m to euro2 billion, despite a euro700m gain from the disposal of its contracting arm.
Randstad has modest debt, about 45% net debt to equity.
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