financial stability

Cashflow '07 = .423
EPS '07 = .215
Cashflow/EPS = 2

A high cashflow to earnings is sign of financial health as it indicates that the company can readily repay loans, fund future capital expenditure, payout dividends and buyback shares.
Jim Slater says ratio of 1 is a bare minimum and we should insist on 1.5. BOL is actually 2

The problem is it has a high debt to equity of 82.7%.
Slater says we should aim at companies with 50% or less. But says this can be up around 75% if a company has high cash flow. Well BOL has high cash flow.
In anycase the company doesn't seem to have much trouble paying interest.
Interest is about 4.5 cents per share and earnings are .215 which means that company's earnings can cover interest 4.7 times.
An interest cover of four is adequate while three or below is a cause for worry. An interest cover of five or more means a company has sound management.
Well BOL at 4.7 appears to be approaching sound management and bit better than adequate.
Inventory has jumped dramatically from $348,000 $21,351,000. Normally this would be a cause for worry as it is indication that demand is dropping.
However this is not the case Revenue has gone from $252m to $349m so demand is strong.
What appears to have happened is that the company has taken over crane retailer and all the stock has been booked in the company's inventory account.
The only thing I am worried about is the revenue has gone up $100 m and the company is not showing an appeciable increase in profit. In fact it is line ball with last year which means costs have gone up $100 m.
I have looked through the accounts and notice that this $100 m is related to the purchase of four companies.
"$99.5m of acquisitions made during year
– James Group - $59.5m - (Aug 2006)
– GM Baden - $ 5.6m - (Mar 2007)
– D&D Cranes - $ 4.2m - (Apr 2007)
– Moorland Hire - $30.2m - (May 2007)"

One thing I like about the acquisition of the crane retailer is that BOOM is vertically integrating. Not only can they sell the cranes at a profit but they can restock their fleet at cost.

Also with this shortage of equipment, it may be possible to see some growth in sales from this area.

All up everything seems in order. BOL pumps out a hell of a lot of cash which can be used to cover any cost and obligation it may have, so it is a fairly safe business as far as I can see.
If you disagree please don't hold back and enlighten us all.
Thanx