NSARO

Nstar Electric

Utilities · fiscal year ending 2011-12-31

Through the investors’ lenses

3 of 4 cleared5 of 6 criteria

Each of these investors has said in public what they look at before buying. Click a name to see how this company measures up — a tick where it passes one of their tests, a cross where it does not.

Warren Buffett 3/3

Measure	NSARO	Checked against
Owner earnings	$143.37m	positive	✓
Return on equity	11.3%	US median 2.8%	✓
Debt to equity	0.56x	US median 0.57x	✓
Operating margin	—	US median 3.1%	—

Passes 3 of 3. These are the measures Warren Buffett published, applied to Nstar Electric’s own figures — their criteria, not their view of this company. What he looks at, and why →

Benjamin Graham 0/1

Measure	NSARO	Checked against
Current ratio	0.57x	2.00x published	✗
Long-term debt to working capital	—	1.00x published	—

Passes 0 of 1. These are the measures Benjamin Graham published, applied to Nstar Electric’s own figures — their criteria, not their view of this company. What he looks at, and why →

Joel Greenblatt 1/1

Measure	NSARO	Checked against
Return on capital employed	14.0%	US median 5.1%	✓

Passes 1 of 1. These are the measures Joel Greenblatt published, applied to Nstar Electric’s own figures — their criteria, not their view of this company. What he looks at, and why →

Peter Lynch 1/1

Measure	NSARO	Checked against
Debt to equity	0.56x	US median 0.57x	✓
Net margin	—	US median 2.0%	—

Passes 1 of 1. These are the measures Peter Lynch published, applied to Nstar Electric’s own figures — their criteria, not their view of this company. What he looks at, and why →

Last usable year: 2011-12-31 — 178 months ago. Nothing filed since gives the figures a payout ratio needs. For a company that once paid, that usually means it stopped.

GAAP earnings is not shown for this company. It cannot be computed from what this company files — the inputs are absent from its XBRL, not zero. The figure marked in the table is operating cash flow instead.

Basis	Payout	Why
Operating cash flow	23.8%	why Before the capital programme the regulator expects.
Free cash flow	50.6%	why Swings with the capex cycle by design — growth into the rate base is recovered through rates. Says little about the dividend.

No GAAP earnings figure is shown. This company does not report the inputs for it in its XBRL filings — capital expenditure, in particular, is often folded into a single investing total rather than tagged on its own. The figure is absent from the filings, not zero, and inventing one from a balance-sheet movement would be a guess dressed as a measurement.

Spread between highest and lowest: 26.7 percentage points. Same filings, different denominators.

Coverage rating 83 / 100 — Comfortable. ? Peer standing · not ranked Direction 25/30Stability 17/20

Operating cash flow payout, last 3 years

Fiscal year	Payout
2011-12-31	23.8%
2010-12-31	34.2%
2009-12-31	27.3%

The arithmetic

Operating cash flow — dividends paid $172m ÷ operating cash flow $721m
Free cash flow — dividends paid $172m ÷ (operating cash flow $721m − capex $381m)

Where the figures came from

10-K filed 2012-02-07 · accession 0001193125-12-043962

Every one is public at sec.gov and free to check. That is the point — you should not have to take our word for any of it.

Computed by an open pipeline reading SEC XBRL directly. If any number here looks wrong to you, tell us — that is more useful to us than agreement.

What the operating cash flow payout ratio measures, and where every company here sits on it.

Also on: rated comfortable · when it files.

Who else looks like this

Every figure above is computed from Nstar Electric’s own filing, and every company here is measured the same way. Screen all of them on any of these twelve measures, or on the rules four investors published — free, and nothing you screen leaves your browser.

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