The Business Insider had an article from September 18th that said what companies, using a Market Cap to Enterprise Value ratio, might be going bankrupt in the future. A lower MC/EV score means that is a company that is far more likely to go bankrupt.

I found some of the companies on the list to be a bit surprising.

Here is the list from the Business Insider:

The number one company that is likely to go bankrupt with a EV/MC ratio of 32% is Hertz. The company had to take out a huge amount of debt to fund its fleet in May. In June, the rating of the company was dropped by Moody’s.

Number two on the list is Textron. The company sells business jets, which is not the business to be in right now. The company had to write off $2.3 billion and cancel a new jet design. The MC/EV ratio is 39%.

Number three is Sprint/Nextel. I am not that surprised to see Sprint make the list, but I really have high hopes for the company because I suppose I have a lot of loyalty toward the company. In reality, Sprint’s poor decision to buy Nextel and the fact that it is hemorrhaging customers (well, hopefully this will slow down due to the new phone offerings and actual great deals on service) has led to the company having a MC/EV ratio of 41%.

Number four, and perhaps the most surprising to me on the list, is Macy’s. The original article asks if anyone shops at department stores anymore and I can honestly say, from what I’ve seen…yes they do and they do in en masse. Same store sales fell all year (but, really, what retailer has done that well this year?). The company has $2.4 billion worth of debt set to mature over the next five years. The MC to EV ratio is 47% for Macy’s.

Fifth is Mylan. Mylan bough Merck’s generic sales an business department in 2007 and overpaid for it. Because of the bad deal it got, it is facing $5 billion in long term debt. Mc/EV ratio for the company is 51%.

If you would like to read the rest of the list, please visit the source.

Given that Sprint hasn’t had a great year, it’s amazing that their top managers were paid $74 million in 2007. They had the $29 billion write off of Nextel at the beginning of the year, and still paid their executives the same pay as if they were the number one cellular provider in the US…they’re not.

They’ve been constantly losing customers to larger carriers AT&T and Verizon. T-Mobile is also catching up to Sprint. The only thing Sprint has going for them right now is their huge network and free roaming. They have recently sold off all their towers so they could rent them (it makes since because they don’t have to pay to fix them when something goes wrong).

I still have Sprint because I was grandfathered in on the old SERO plan, it’s basically the most amazing cellular phone plan that ever was.

I have no loyalties though, if Sprint decided to drop me, I’ll switch.