Some Firms have significantly more annual earnings than annual interest expense. A times- interest-earned (TIE) ratio is usually measured as earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) divided by total interest expense. For example, the TIE ratio for IBM is over 80. That is, IBM can pay its annual interest expense more than 80 times over. On the one hand, a high TIE ratio seems great but on the other hand, it could signal that the firm has low capital investment expenses for future growth opportunities. This latter scenario is not necessarily bad because firms eventually enter a maturity stage in their lifecycle. But if the firm is not paying dividends (or enough dividends) then the firm could be retaining and holding on to too much cash. Cash is not the most productive asset and sometimes cash can be spent on bad projects such as extra perks for management, which is not good for shareholders.
One remedy for this problem would be to use excess cash to repurchase stock or raise dividends and then to borrow funds to finance its projects. The increase in interest expense may lead to a reduction in net income per share could be higher as a result of this capital structure change. In addition, in and of itself, should increase the value of the firm.
IBM has a TIE radio of over 80 but less than 15 percent of its total assets are financed with long-term debt and meanwhile, it holds billions in cash and equivalents and it pays billions in taxes. After much criticism from investors and shareholders, at the end of 2004, Microsoft, a firm also sitting on billions in excess cash, paid a special dividend of $3 per share, reducing its cash position by $32 billion