In addition to the building and land costs, our new stores require working capital, predominantly for inventories. Historically, we have negotiated extended payment terms from suppliers, reducing the working capital required and resulting in a high accounts payable to inventory ratio. We plan to continue leveraging our inventory purchases; however, our ability to do so may be limited by our vendors’ capacity to factor their receivables from us. Certain vendors participate in financing arrangements with financial institutions whereby they factor their receivables from us, allowing them to receive payment on our invoices at a discounted rate. Extended payment terms from our vendors have allowed us to continue our high accounts payable to inventory ratio. Accounts payable, as a percentage of gross inventory, was 110.3% at November 23, 2019, compared to 108.9% at November 17, 2018. The increase was primarily due to more favorable vendor terms.
Depending on the timing and magnitude of our future investments (either in the form of leased or purchased properties or acquisitions), we anticipate that we will rely primarily on internally generated funds and available borrowing capacity to support a majority of our capital expenditures, working capital requirements and stock repurchases. The balance may be funded through new borrowings. We anticipate that we will be able to obtain such financing in view of our current credit ratings and favorable experiences in the debt markets in the past.
For the trailing four quarters ended November 23, 2019, our adjusted
after-tax
return on invested capital (“ROIC”) was 35.5% as compared to 33.7% for the comparable prior year period. We use adjusted ROIC to evaluate whether we are effectively using our capital resources and believe it is an important indicator of our overall operating performance. Refer to the “Reconciliation of
Non-GAAP
Financial Measures” section for further details of our calculation.
We entered into a Master Extension, New Commitment and Amendment Agreement dated as of November 18, 2017 (the “Extension Amendment”) to the Third Amended and Restated Credit Agreement dated as of November 18, 2016, as amended, modified, extended or restated from time to time (the “Revolving Credit Agreement”). Under the Extension Amendment: (i) our borrowing capacity under the Revolving Credit Agreement was increased from $1.6 billion to $2.0 billion; (ii) our option to increase the borrowing capacity under the Revolving Credit Agreement was “refreshed” and the amount of such option remained at $400 million; (iii) the maximum borrowing under the Revolving Credit Agreement may, at our option, subject to lenders approval, be increased from $2.0 billion to $2.4 billion; (iv) the termination date of the Revolving Credit Agreement was extended from November 18, 2021 until November 18, 2022; and (v) we have the option to make one additional written request of the lenders to extend the termination date then in effect for an additional year. Under the Revolving Credit Agreement, we may borrow funds consisting of Eurodollar loans, base rate loans or a combination of both. Interest accrues on Eurodollar loans at a defined Eurodollar rate, defined as LIBOR plus the applicable percentage, as defined in the Revolving Credit Agreement, depending upon our senior, unsecured,
(non-credit
enhanced) long-term debt ratings. Interest accrues on base rate loans as defined in the Revolving Credit Agreement. As of November 23, 2019, we had $3.2 million of outstanding letters of credit under the Revolving Credit Agreement.
We also maintain a letter of credit facility that allows us to request the participating bank to issue letters of credit on our behalf up to an aggregate amount of $25 million. The letter of credit facility is in addition to the letters of credit that may be issued under the Revolving Credit Agreement. As of November 23, 2019, we had $20.2 million in letters of credit outstanding under the letter of credit facility, which expires in June 2022.
In addition to the outstanding letters of credit issued under the committed facilities discussed above, we had $224.2 million in letters of credit outstanding as of November 23, 2019. These letters of credit have various maturity dates and were issued on an uncommitted basis.
All senior notes are subject to an interest rate adjustment if the debt ratings assigned to the senior notes are downgraded (as defined in the agreements). Further, the senior notes contain a provision that repayment of the senior notes may be accelerated if we experience a change in control (as defined in the agreements). Our borrowings under our senior notes contain minimal covenants, primarily restrictions on liens. Under our revolving credit facilities, covenants include restrictions on liens, a maximum debt to earnings ratio, a minimum fixed charge coverage ratio and a change of control provision that may require acceleration of the repayment obligations under certain circumstances. All of the repayment obligations under our borrowing arrangements may be accelerated and come due prior to the applicable scheduled payment date if covenants are breached or an event of default occurs. As of November 23, 2019, we were in compliance with all covenants and expect to remain in compliance with all covenants under our borrowing arrangements.
As of November 23, 2019, the $1.110 billion of commercial paper borrowings and the $500 million 4.000% Senior Notes due November 2020 were classified as long-term in the Consolidated Balance Sheets as we had the ability and intent to refinance them on a long-term basis through available capacity in our revolving credit facilities. As of November 23, 2019, we had $1.997 billion of availability under our $2.0 billion revolving credit facilities, which would allow us to replace these short-term obligations with long-term financing facilities.
Our adjusted debt to earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, amortization, and rent (“EBITDAR”) ratio was 2.5:1 as of November 23, 2019 and was 2.5:1 as of November 17, 2018. We calculate adjusted debt as the sum of total debt, finance lease liabilities and rent times six; and we calculate adjusted EBITDAR by adding interest, taxes, depreciation, amortization, rent, share-based expense, impairment charges, pension termination charges and deferred tax liabilities to net income. Adjusted debt to EBITDAR is calculated on a trailing four quarter basis. We target our debt levels to a ratio of adjusted debt to EBITDAR in order to maintain our investment grade credit ratings. We believe this is important information for the management of our debt levels. To the extent EBITDAR continues to grow in future years, we expect our debt levels to increase; conversely, if EBITDAR declines, we would expect our debt levels to decrease. Refer to the “Reconciliation of
Non-GAAP
Financial Measures” section for further details of our calculation.
