Houle Plumbing Products Ltd. reported the following data in 2010 (in billions):
2010
Net operating revenues................ $29.7
Operating expenses..................... 24.7
Operating income....................... 5.0
Nonoperating items:
Interest expense....................... 1.61
Other...................................... (0.1)
Net income.................................. $ 3.3
Compute Houle’s times-interest-earned ratio, and write a sentence to explain what the ratio value means. Would you be willing to lend Houle $1 billion? State your reason.