over the past three months shares of keurig dr pepper inc kdp moved lower by 1070 before having a look at the importance of debt lets look at how much debt keurig dr pepper has based on keurig dr peppers balance sheet as of april 27 2023 longterm debt is at 993 billion and current debt is at 231 billion amounting to 1224 billion in total debt adjusted for 20400 million in cashequivalents the companys net debt is at 1204 billion lets define some of the terms we used in the paragraph above current debt is the portion of a companys debt which is due within 1 year while longterm debt is the portion due in more than 1 year cash equivalents includes cash and any liquid securities with maturity periods of 90 days or less total debt equals current debt plus longterm debt minus cash equivalents investors look at the debtratio to understand how much financial leverage a company has keurig dr pepper has 5166 billion in total assets therefore making the debtratio 024 as a rule of thumb a debtratio more than 1 indicates that a considerable portion of debt is funded by assets a higher debtratio can also imply that the company might be putting itself at risk for default if interest rates were to increase however debtratios vary widely across different industries for example a debt ratio of 35 might be higher for one industry but normal for another besides equity debt is an important factor in the capital structure of a company and contributes to its growth due to its lower financing cost compared to equity it becomes an attractive option for executives trying to raise capital however interestpayment obligations can have an adverse impact on the cashflow of the company having financial leverage also allows companies to use additional capital for business operations allowing equity owners to retain excess profit generated by the debt capital looking for stocks with low debttoequity ratios check out benzinga pro a market research platform which provides investors with nearinstantaneous access to dozens of stock metrics  including debttoequity ratio click here to learn more this article was generated by benzingas automated content engine and reviewed by an editor