SOSouthern Company
Is it safe?
Solid, nothing alarming: steady price behavior, but heavy debt (BB).
Mixed, watch the balance sheet Altman Z-score, a bankruptcy-risk model from five balance-sheet ratios.
Insiders were net sellers (-$842K, 90 days to Oct 8, 2026), selling is often routine.
Moderately leveraged. A rule of thumb on leverage, not a credit rating.
Relatively steady, low volatility. Worst drawdown -38% · now 12% below its 52-week high.
Unless marked, from SEC EDGAR, as of Dec 31, 2025.
Against the whole market›
Percentile against every name Ryufin tracks. Higher is better; the tick marks the middle of the market. Context, not one of the checks above.
Where this answer is blind. Altman sits structurally low for utilities and pipelines; Beneish runs high for fast growers, since sales growth alone lifts it; banks and REITs are excluded.
Can SO take a bad year?
Southern Company carries $73.5B of net debt at 7.01× EBITDA: a heavy load to carry through a bad year.
Net debt · as at Q1 2026 · over four years of earnings before interest, tax and depreciation, heavy
- Net debt / EBITDA
- 7.01×
Net debt / EBITDA · 6.53× a year ago · the load is going up
- Altman Z-score
- 0.97
Altman Z-score · distress zone, below 1.8
- Cash runway
- 0.3 years
Cash runway · burning $867M a quarter at the current rate
Details›
- Total debtQ1 2026
- $74.5B
- Cash and short-term investments
- $981M
- Net debt
- $73.5B
- EBITDA, trailing twelve months
- $10.5B
- Operating profit, trailing twelve months
- $7.29B
- Debt / equity
- 1.87×
- Total debt / EBITDA
- 7.10×
- Annualised volatilitytwo years of daily moves
- 18%
- Worst drawdown on file
- −38%
- Below its 52-week high
- 12%
Balance sheet from SEC filings; drawdown and volatility from end-of-day closes; Altman Z from the filed statements.
Utilities, Regulated Electric
The closest names by size in the same industry