Yahoo Finance Companies Like Regulus Resources (CVE:REG) Are In A Position To Invest In Growth
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.
Given this risk, we thought we'd take a look at whether Regulus Resources (CVE:REG) shareholders should be worried about its 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. First, we'll determine its cash runway by comparing its cash burn with its cash reserves.
View our latest analysis for Regulus Resources
How Long Is Regulus Resources' Cash Runway?
A company's cash runway is calculated by dividing its cash hoard by its cash burn. As at June 2021, Regulus Resources had cash of CA$11m and no debt. In the last year, its cash burn was CA$7.5m. So it had a cash runway of approximately 18 months from June 2021. 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 Regulus Resources' Cash Burn Changing Over Time?
Regulus Resources didn't record any revenue over the last year, indicating that it's an early stage company still developing its business. Nonetheless, we can still examine its cash burn trajectory as part of our assessment of its cash burn situation. Even though it doesn't get us excited, the 50% reduction in cash burn year on year does suggest the company can continue operating for quite some time. Regulus Resources 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.
Can Regulus Resources Raise More Cash Easily?
While we're comforted by the recent reduction evident from our analysis of Regulus Resources' cash burn, it is still worth considering how easily the company could raise more funds, if it wanted to accelerate spending to drive 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. 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.
Regulus Resources has a market capitalisation of CA$109m and burnt through CA$7.5m last year, which is 6.9% of the company's market value. 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.
So, Should We Worry About Regulus Resources' Cash Burn?
Regulus Resources appears to be in pretty good health when it comes to its cash burn situation. One the one hand we have its solid cash burn reduction, while on the other it can also boast very strong cash burn relative to its market cap. Based on the factors mentioned in this article, we think its cash burn situation warrants some attention from shareholders, but we don't think they should be worried. On another note, Regulus Resources has 3 warning signs (and 1 which can't be ignored) we think you should know about.
Of course, you might find a fantastic investment by looking elsewhere. So take a peek at this free list of companies insiders are buying, and this list of stocks growth stocks (according to analyst forecasts)
This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. 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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