Yahoo Finance We're A Little Worried About LaSalle Exploration's (CVE:LSX) Cash Burn Rate
Just because a business does not make any money, does not mean that the stock will go down. For example, although Amazon.com made losses for many years after listing, if you had bought and held the shares since 1999, you would have made a fortune. Nonetheless, only a fool would ignore the risk that a loss making company burns through its cash too quickly.
So should LaSalle Exploration (CVE:LSX) shareholders 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). First, we'll determine its cash runway by comparing its cash burn with its cash reserves.
View our latest analysis for LaSalle Exploration
How Long Is LaSalle Exploration'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. When LaSalle Exploration last reported its balance sheet in September 2019, it had zero debt and cash worth CA$143k. Importantly, its cash burn was CA$522k over the trailing twelve months. Therefore, from September 2019 it had roughly 3 months of cash runway. That's a very short cash runway which indicates an imminent need to douse the cash burn or find more funding. You can see how its cash balance has changed over time in the image below.
How Is LaSalle Exploration's Cash Burn Changing Over Time?
Because LaSalle Exploration isn't currently generating revenue, we consider it an early-stage 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. In fact, it ramped its spending strongly over the last year, increasing cash burn by 193%. It's fair to say that sort of rate of increase cannot be maintained for very long, without putting pressure on the balance sheet. LaSalle Exploration makes us a little nervous due to its lack of substantial operating revenue. We prefer most of the stocks on this list of stocks that analysts expect to grow.
Can LaSalle Exploration Raise More Cash Easily?
Given its cash burn trajectory, LaSalle Exploration shareholders should already be thinking about how easy it might be for it to raise further cash in the future. Generally speaking, a listed business can raise new cash through issuing shares or taking on debt. One of the main advantages held by publicly listed companies is that they can sell shares to investors to raise cash to 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).
LaSalle Exploration has a market capitalisation of CA$4.5m and burnt through CA$522k last year, which is 12% of the company's market value. Given that situation, it's fair to say the company wouldn't have much trouble raising more cash for growth, but shareholders would be somewhat diluted.
How Risky Is LaSalle Exploration's Cash Burn Situation?
Even though its increasing cash burn makes us a little nervous, we are compelled to mention that we thought LaSalle Exploration's cash burn relative to its market cap was relatively promising. After considering the data discussed in this article, we don't have a lot of confidence that its cash burn rate is prudent, as it seems like it might need more cash soon. On another note, LaSalle Exploration has 4 warning signs (and 2 which make us uncomfortable) we think you should know about.
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.
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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