Obtain Financial Statements (10K)

• If you have a full service broker, you can ask them to tell you how much debt is listed for a particular company. If you want to do the job yourself, you will have to first download the 10K or financial statements from either the website of the company (usually in investor relations) or from EDGAR (Electronic Data Gathering, Analysis and Retrieval), the financial documents database provided by the SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission).
  
  

Liabilities are on the Balance Sheet

• Scroll through the document or go to the table of contents to locate the balance sheet. The balance sheet is a snapshot of the assets, liabilities and owner's equity in a company. Liabilities are split between current (less than one year) and long term (at least one year). Look for the total number of liabilities for the current amount of outstanding debt.
  
  

Notes to the Financial Statements

• Look at the notes to the balance sheet. There will always be an explanation about the types of debt (i.e., term or bridge loan), as well as the interest rates paid and the date the debt will come due. Some banks also consider long term leases (also known as capitalized leases) as long term debt, as they represent long term payment obligations.