Textbook Problem

To get an overall picture of each company's capital structure, it is helpful to look at a the Key Ratios screen and then select the Financial Health tab. Common size balance sheet data are provided over a 10-year period. What, if any, are the major trends that emerge when you're looking at those data? Do those companies tend to have relatively high or relatively low levels of debt? Do these companies have significant levels of current liabilities? Have their capital structures changed over time?

Use online resources to work on this chapter's questions. Please note that website information changes over time, and these changes may limit your ability to answer some of these questions.

This chapter provides an overview of the effects of leverage and describes the process that firms use to determine their optimal capital structure. The chapter also indicates that capital structures tend to vary across industries and across countries. If you are interested in exploring these differences in more detail, the Morningstar website provides information about the capital structures of each of the companies it follows. The following discussion questions demonstrate how we can use this information to evaluate the capital structures for four restaurant companies: Cheesecake Factory (CAKE), Chipotle Mexican Grill (CMG), Ruby Tuesday (RT), and O'Charley's Inc. (CHUX).