Yahoo Finance Is Gensource Potash (CVE:GSP) In A Good Position To Invest In Growth?
There's no doubt that money can be made by owning shares of unprofitable businesses. For example, biotech and mining exploration companies often lose money for years before finding success with a new treatment or mineral discovery. Nonetheless, only a fool would ignore the risk that a loss making company burns through its cash too quickly.
Given this risk, we thought we'd take a look at whether Gensource Potash (CVE:GSP) shareholders should be worried about its cash burn. In this article, we define cash burn as its annual (negative) free cash flow, which is the amount of money a company spends each year to fund its growth. First, we'll determine its cash runway by comparing its cash burn with its cash reserves.
View our latest analysis for Gensource Potash
When Might Gensource Potash Run Out Of Money?
A company's cash runway is calculated by dividing its cash hoard by its cash burn. As at March 2021, Gensource Potash had cash of CA$3.8m and no debt. In the last year, its cash burn was CA$5.5m. So it had a cash runway of approximately 8 months from March 2021. To be frank, this kind of short runway puts us on edge, as it indicates the company must reduce its cash burn significantly, or else raise cash imminently. The image below shows how its cash balance has been changing over the last few years.
How Hard Would It Be For Gensource Potash To Raise More Cash For Growth?
Issuing new shares, or taking on debt, are the most common ways for a listed company to raise more money for its business. Many companies end up issuing new shares to fund future growth. We can compare a company's cash burn to its market capitalisation to get a sense for how many new shares a company would have to issue to fund one year's operations.
Gensource Potash's cash burn of CA$5.5m is about 5.9% of its CA$94m market capitalisation. Given that is a rather small percentage, it would probably be really easy for the company to fund another year's growth by issuing some new shares to investors, or even by taking out a loan.
So, Should We Worry About Gensource Potash's Cash Burn?
Given it's an early stage company, we don't have a lot of data with which to judge Gensource Potash's cash burn. We would undoubtedly be more comfortable if it had reported some operating revenue. Having said that, we can say that its cash burn relative to its market cap was a real positive. Even though we don't think shareholders should be alarmed by its cash burn, we do think they should be keeping a close eye on it. Taking a deeper dive, we've spotted 3 warning signs for Gensource Potash you should be aware of, and 1 of them makes us a bit uncomfortable.
Of course, you might find a fantastic investment by looking elsewhere. So take a peek at this free list of interesting companies, and this list of stocks growth stocks (according to analyst forecasts)
This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. 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.
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