Yahoo Finance We're Interested To See How Monument Mining (CVE:MMY) Uses Its Cash Hoard To Grow
There's no doubt that money can be made by owning shares of unprofitable businesses. 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. But while the successes are well known, investors should not ignore the very many unprofitable companies that simply burn through all their cash and collapse.
Given this risk, we thought we'd take a look at whether Monument Mining (CVE:MMY) shareholders should 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). Let's start with an examination of the business' cash, relative to its cash burn.
View our latest analysis for Monument Mining
How Long Is Monument Mining's 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. In March 2020, Monument Mining had US$10m in cash, and was debt-free. In the last year, its cash burn was US$1.2m. So it had a cash runway of about 8.6 years from March 2020. While this is only one measure of its cash burn situation, it certainly gives us the impression that holders have nothing to worry about. The image below shows how its cash balance has been changing over the last few years.
How Well Is Monument Mining Growing?
Monument Mining managed to reduce its cash burn by 88% over the last twelve months, which is extremely promising, when it comes to considering its need for cash. This reduction was no doubt supported by its strong revenue growth of 54% in the same period. Overall, we'd say its growth is rather impressive. In reality, this article only makes a short study of the company's growth data. This graph of historic revenue growth shows how Monument Mining is building its business over time.
How Hard Would It Be For Monument Mining To Raise More Cash For Growth?
There's no doubt Monument Mining seems to be in a fairly good position, when it comes to managing its cash burn, but even if it's only hypothetical, it's always worth asking how easily it could raise more money to fund growth. Companies can raise capital through either debt or equity. Many companies end up issuing new shares to fund future growth. By looking at a company's cash burn relative to its market capitalisation, we gain insight on how much shareholders would be diluted if the company needed to raise enough cash to cover another year's cash burn.
Monument Mining's cash burn of US$1.2m is about 6.0% of its US$20m market capitalisation. That's a low proportion, so we figure the company would be able to raise more cash to fund growth, with a little dilution, or even to simply borrow some money.
How Risky Is Monument Mining's Cash Burn Situation?
It may already be apparent to you that we're relatively comfortable with the way Monument Mining is burning through its cash. In particular, we think its cash burn reduction stands out as evidence that the company is well on top of its spending. And even its cash burn relative to its market cap was very encouraging. After considering a range of factors in this article, we're pretty relaxed about its cash burn, since the company seems to be in a good position to continue to fund its growth. On another note, we conducted an in-depth investigation of the company, and identified 3 warning signs for Monument Mining (1 shouldn't be ignored!) that you should be aware of before investing here.
Of course Monument Mining 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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