Yahoo Finance Is Cantex Mine Development (CVE:CD) In A Good Position To Invest In Growth?
Even when a business is losing money, it's possible for shareholders to make money if they buy a good business at the right price. For example, biotech and mining exploration companies often lose money for years before finding success with a new treatment or mineral discovery. Having said that, unprofitable companies are risky because they could potentially burn through all their cash and become distressed.
So should Cantex Mine Development (CVE:CD) shareholders be worried about its cash burn? For the purpose of this article, we'll define cash burn as the amount of cash the company is spending each year to fund its growth (also called its negative free cash flow). First, we'll determine its cash runway by comparing its cash burn with its cash reserves.
See our latest analysis for Cantex Mine Development
When Might Cantex Mine Development Run Out Of Money?
A cash runway is defined as the length of time it would take a company to run out of money if it kept spending at its current rate of cash burn. As at April 2022, Cantex Mine Development had cash of CA$6.1m and no debt. In the last year, its cash burn was CA$6.9m. That means it had a cash runway of around 11 months as of April 2022. That's quite a short cash runway, indicating the company must either reduce its annual cash burn or replenish its cash. You can see how its cash balance has changed over time in the image below.
How Is Cantex Mine Development's Cash Burn Changing Over Time?
Cantex Mine Development didn't record any revenue over the last year, indicating that it's an early stage company still developing its business. So while we can't look to sales to understand growth, we can look at how the cash burn is changing to understand how expenditure is trending over time. It's possible that the 6.1% reduction in cash burn over the last year is evidence of management tightening their belts as cash reserves deplete. Cantex Mine Development makes us a little nervous due to its lack of substantial operating revenue. So we'd generally prefer stocks from this list of stocks that have analysts forecasting growth.
Can Cantex Mine Development Raise More Cash Easily?
While Cantex Mine Development is showing a solid reduction in its cash burn, it's still worth considering how easily it could raise more cash, even just to fuel faster growth. Companies can raise capital through either debt or equity. One of the main advantages held by publicly listed companies is that they can sell shares to investors to raise cash and fund growth. By comparing a company's annual cash burn to its total market capitalisation, we can estimate roughly how many shares it would have to issue in order to run the company for another year (at the same burn rate).
Cantex Mine Development's cash burn of CA$6.9m is about 22% of its CA$31m market capitalisation. That's fairly notable cash burn, so if the company had to sell shares to cover the cost of another year's operations, shareholders would suffer some costly dilution.
So, Should We Worry About Cantex Mine Development's Cash Burn?
Even though its cash runway makes us a little nervous, we are compelled to mention that we thought Cantex Mine Development's cash burn reduction was relatively promising. Summing up, we think the Cantex Mine Development's cash burn is a risk, based on the factors we mentioned in this article. Taking a deeper dive, we've spotted 5 warning signs for Cantex Mine Development you should be aware of, and 3 of them are potentially serious.
If you would prefer to check out another company with better fundamentals, then do not miss this free list of interesting companies, that have HIGH return on equity and low debt or this list of stocks which are all forecast to grow.
Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) simplywallst.com.
This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.
Join A Paid User Research Session
You’ll receive a US$30 Amazon Gift card for 1 hour of your time while helping us build better investing tools for the individual investors like yourself. Sign up here
