Yahoo Finance Will Khiron Life Sciences (CVE:KHRN) Spend Its Cash Wisely?
We can readily understand why investors are attracted to unprofitable companies. 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 Khiron Life Sciences (CVE:KHRN) shareholders be worried about its cash burn? For the purposes of this article, cash burn is the annual rate at which an unprofitable company spends cash to fund its growth; its negative free cash flow. We'll start by comparing its cash burn with its cash reserves in order to calculate its cash runway.
See our latest analysis for Khiron Life Sciences
How Long Is Khiron Life Sciences' Cash Runway?
You can calculate a company's cash runway by dividing the amount of cash it has by the rate at which it is spending that cash. Khiron Life Sciences has such a small amount of debt that we'll set it aside, and focus on the CA$22m in cash it held at December 2020. Looking at the last year, the company burnt through CA$27m. That means it had a cash runway of around 10 months as of December 2020. 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. We should note, however, that if we extrapolate recent trends in its cash burn, then its cash runway would get a lot longer. Depicted below, you can see how its cash holdings have changed over time.
How Well Is Khiron Life Sciences Growing?
We reckon the fact that Khiron Life Sciences managed to shrink its cash burn by 25% over the last year is rather encouraging. But the revenue dip of 16% in the same period was a bit concerning. Considering both these factors, we're not particularly excited by its growth profile. While the past is always worth studying, it is the future that matters most of all. So you might want to take a peek at how much the company is expected to grow in the next few years.
How Easily Can Khiron Life Sciences Raise Cash?
Since Khiron Life Sciences revenue has been falling, the market will likely be considering how it can raise more cash if need be. Generally speaking, a listed business can raise new cash through issuing shares or taking on debt. Commonly, a business will sell new shares in itself to raise cash and drive 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.
Khiron Life Sciences' cash burn of CA$27m is about 32% of its CA$84m market capitalisation. That's not insignificant, and if the company had to sell enough shares to fund another year's growth at the current share price, you'd likely witness fairly costly dilution.
How Risky Is Khiron Life Sciences' Cash Burn Situation?
On this analysis of Khiron Life Sciences' cash burn, we think its cash burn reduction was reassuring, while its cash runway has us a bit worried. Summing up, we think the Khiron Life Sciences' cash burn is a risk, based on the factors we mentioned in this article. On another note, we conducted an in-depth investigation of the company, and identified 5 warning signs for Khiron Life Sciences (1 is concerning!) that you should be aware of before investing here.
Of course Khiron Life Sciences may not be the best stock to buy. So you may wish to see this free collection of companies boasting high return on equity, or this list of stocks that insiders are buying.
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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