Yahoo Finance We're Keeping An Eye On Metallic Minerals' (CVE:MMG) Cash Burn Rate
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, Metallic Minerals (CVE:MMG) shareholders have done very well over the last year, with the share price soaring by 172%. But the harsh reality is that very many loss making companies burn through all their cash and go bankrupt.
So notwithstanding the buoyant share price, we think it's well worth asking whether Metallic Minerals'cash burn is too risky 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. First, we'll determine its cash runway by comparing its cash burn with its cash reserves.
Check out our latest analysis for Metallic Minerals
How Long Is Metallic Minerals' 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 April 2020, Metallic Minerals had CA$2.1m in cash, and was debt-free. Importantly, its cash burn was CA$2.6m over the trailing twelve months. That means it had a cash runway of around 10 months as of April 2020. 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 Metallic Minerals' Cash Burn Changing Over Time?
Metallic Minerals 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. As it happens, the company's cash burn reduced by 24% over the last year, which suggests that management are mindful of the possibility of running out of cash. Metallic 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 Easily Can Metallic Minerals Raise Cash?
While Metallic Minerals 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. Issuing new shares, or taking on debt, are the most common ways for a listed company to raise more money for its business. 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).
Metallic Minerals' cash burn of CA$2.6m is about 5.3% of its CA$49m 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.
Is Metallic Minerals' Cash Burn A Worry?
On this analysis of Metallic Minerals' cash burn, we think its cash burn relative to its market cap was reassuring, while its cash runway has us a bit worried. We don't think its cash burn is particularly problematic, but after considering the range of factors in this article, we do think shareholders should be monitoring how it changes over time. On another note, we conducted an in-depth investigation of the company, and identified 5 warning signs for Metallic Minerals (2 are significant!) that you should be aware of before investing here.
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.
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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