Times Interest Covered

TIC refers to "how much money a company can or has borrowed." Let's say a company has borrowed a billion bucks, for which it pays 5% interest. It has interest costs of $50 million. The company itself has $100 million in cash flow, so interest in this case is covered twice. You can imagine that, if interest was covered 8 times, it would be a much safer bet that the company will make good on paying back the loan.