The blog has long worried about the high levels of debt that have been incurred by some companies in recent years. So it applauds Akzo’s decision to halt its planned €3bn share back at the half-way stage. As Nigel Davis notes in ICIS insight, Akzo has a very strong balance sheet, and its ‘gearing is only 10%’. But even so, Akzo apparently cannot currently ‘re-finance short-term bonds’.
