You might be thinking about debt from a personal finance angle - it’s costly, and borrowing money to buy a car isn’t ideal because you end up paying a lot more to own the car. In this context we’re taught that borrowing should be avoided, and if we really have to borrow we should pay it off as quickly as possible.

In business it doesn’t really work that way. Often there’s no expectation that you will repay the money you borrow within any specific period of time. Banks are in the business of lending you money after all.

Suppose you have $1m. Maybe you borrow $4m and buy a $5m farm. Things go well and in a few years your profit (after paying interest on that loan) is another $1m which you still have in the bank. You could pay down your debt, but then your profits would be more or less the same. Or… you could double your profits by borrowing more and buying another farm.

Of course it’s not that simple and there’s lots of good reasons to pay down debt but I’m just trying to illustrate that paying it off is not always the objective.