Yahoo Finance Will Nexus Minerals (ASX:NXM) Spend Its Cash Wisely?
Just because a business does not make any money, does not mean that the stock will go down. For example, although software-as-a-service business Salesforce.com lost money for years while it grew recurring revenue, if you held shares since 2005, you'd have done very well indeed. Nonetheless, only a fool would ignore the risk that a loss making company burns through its cash too quickly.
So, the natural question for Nexus Minerals (ASX:NXM) shareholders is whether they should be concerned by its rate of 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. The first step is to compare its cash burn with its cash reserves, to give us its 'cash runway'.
See our latest analysis for Nexus Minerals
When Might Nexus Minerals 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 December 2019, Nexus Minerals had cash of AU$3.1m and such minimal debt that we can ignore it for the purposes of this analysis. Looking at the last year, the company burnt through AU$1.8m. That means it had a cash runway of around 21 months as of December 2019. That's not too bad, but it's fair to say the end of the cash runway is in sight, unless cash burn reduces drastically. You can see how its cash balance has changed over time in the image below.
How Is Nexus Minerals's Cash Burn Changing Over Time?
Whilst it's great to see that Nexus Minerals has already begun generating revenue from operations, last year it only produced AU$488k, so we don't think it is generating significant revenue, at this point. As a result, we think it's a bit early to focus on the revenue growth, so we'll limit ourselves to looking at how the cash burn is changing over time. Over the last year its cash burn actually increased by 6.9%, which suggests that management are increasing investment in future growth, but not too quickly. However, the company's true cash runway will therefore be shorter than suggested above, if spending continues to increase. Nexus Minerals 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.
How Hard Would It Be For Nexus Minerals To Raise More Cash For Growth?
Since its cash burn is increasing (albeit only slightly), Nexus Minerals shareholders should still be mindful of the possibility it will require more cash in the future. Companies can raise capital through either debt or equity. 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.
Nexus Minerals has a market capitalisation of AU$4.6m and burnt through AU$1.8m last year, which is 38% of the company's market value. 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.
How Risky Is Nexus Minerals's Cash Burn Situation?
On this analysis of Nexus Minerals's cash burn, we think its cash runway was reassuring, while its cash burn relative to its market cap has us a bit worried. Even though we don't think it has a problem with its cash burn, the analysis we've done in this article does suggest that shareholders should give some careful thought to the potential cost of raising more money in the future. On another note, Nexus Minerals has 5 warning signs (and 3 which make us uncomfortable) we think you should know about.
Of course Nexus Minerals 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.
If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com. 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. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned.
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