Industry Profiles
Utilities DSO Improves But Debt Remains High, Cash Drops
Nov. 10, 2009
Daylife photo
The Palo Verde nuclear plant, located west of
Phoenix, Arizona, is the largest in the U.S.
and is jointly owned by several utilities.
Few industries face greater dangers during a recession than the utilites industry, which ranks fifth among the 70 CSI industry groups with the highest debts-to-assets ratio. Find out which ones are on solid ground and which ones may be in quicksand in this CSI industry profile.
The days' sales outstanding for the 60-company utilities industry decreased by almost one full day when unbilled revenue is included from the 2007 figure and 1.62 days from the 2007 figure when unbilled revenue is not included in the DSO calculation. However, in an ominous sign, both current ratio and operations cash dropped significantly from their 2007 levels.
