How Industry Characteristics Drive Leveraging Decisions
In the end, it is often the volatility of an industry that suggests a leveraging strategy: the more stable the industry, the more leverage might be acceptable. Let's illustrate with three examples: Biogen, Netscape, and Donald Trump.
Biotechnology is a tremendously high-risk business. Companies like Biogen incur staggering research costs on a gamble that they will produce an effective and marketable product. Their income can soar or sag based on hard-to-predict government approvals. Faced with that kind of uncertainty, Biogen clearly chooses to keep its debt load to a minimum. Rather than leveraging, it takes on equity investors (shareholders) willing to assume Biogen's high risks in exchange for the possibility of high returns.