Should Investors Worry About Enterprise Products' 3.1 Leverage Ratio?

Enterprise Products Partners LP EPD reported a consolidated leverage ratio of 3.1 as of March 31, 2025. This means the master limited partnership’s net debt (after removing the equity-like portion of hybrid debt and subtracting available cash) is 3.1 times larger than its adjusted EBITDA – a measure of its core earnings from operations.  

EPD’s leverage ratio is thus slightly above the midpoint of its target range of 2.75 to 3.25. This generally signals a strong balance sheet as the partnership has the highest credit rating in the midstream energy space. Thus, Enterprise Products is in a strong position with more flexibility to raise capital in the future at favorable rates.

That said, the midstream energy giant is carefully managing its balance sheet. On its first-quarter earnings call, EPD stated that as of the March quarter of this year, 96% of its $31.9 billion in total debt carried a fixed interest rate, which means the interest payments will not increase even if market interest rates rise. The partnership added that its debt portfolio has an average maturity of 18 years, and hence has plenty of time to pay off its debt principal. Although the overall outlook appears strong, investors should continue to monitor whether the partnership can maintain healthy profits to keep its leverage ratio within the target range it has committed to.

Do KMI & WMB Have a Strong Balance Sheet?

Kinder Morgan KMI and Williams WMB are also leading midstream energy players. Thus, both KMI and WMB require significant capital to invest in and to maintain their midstream assets.

Considering the total debt-to-capitalization ratio, WMB has significantly more exposure to debt capital than the composite players belonging to the industry. WMB has a debt-to-capitalization of 64.8%, considerably higher than the industry’s 56.8%.

Kinder Morgan’s story is, however, favorable. This is because KMI, responsible for transporting roughly 40% of the natural gas consumed in the domestic market, has a debt-to-capitalization of 50.8%.

EPD’s Price Performance, Valuation & Estimates

Units of EPD gained 18% over the past year, outpacing the 17.5% rise of the composite stocks belonging to the industry.

One-Year Price Chart

From a valuation standpoint, EPD trades at a trailing 12-month enterprise value to EBITDA (EV/EBITDA) of 10.08x. This is below the broader industry average of 11.48x.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for EPD’s 2025 earnings hasn’t been revised over the past seven days. EPD currently carries a Zacks Rank #4 (Sell).  

You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).

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