Yahoo Finance Here's Why We're Not At All Concerned With Twist Bioscience's (NASDAQ:TWST) Cash Burn Situation
We can readily understand why investors are attracted to unprofitable companies. Indeed, Twist Bioscience (NASDAQ:TWST) stock is up 180% in the last year, providing strong gains for shareholders. But while history lauds those rare successes, those that fail are often forgotten; who remembers Pets.com?
Given its strong share price performance, we think it's worthwhile for Twist Bioscience shareholders to consider whether its cash burn is concerning. 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). We'll start by comparing its cash burn with its cash reserves in order to calculate its cash runway.
Check out our latest analysis for Twist Bioscience
When Might Twist Bioscience Run Out Of Money?
A company's cash runway is calculated by dividing its cash hoard by its cash burn. In March 2024, Twist Bioscience had US$293m in cash, and was debt-free. Importantly, its cash burn was US$96m over the trailing twelve months. So it had a cash runway of about 3.1 years from March 2024. Notably, analysts forecast that Twist Bioscience will break even (at a free cash flow level) in about 4 years. Essentially, that means the company will either reduce its cash burn, or else require more cash. The image below shows how its cash balance has been changing over the last few years.
How Well Is Twist Bioscience Growing?
It was fairly positive to see that Twist Bioscience reduced its cash burn by 55% during the last year. And considering that its operating revenue gained 22% during that period, that's great to see. We think it is growing rather well, upon reflection. Clearly, however, the crucial factor is whether the company will grow its business going forward. So you might want to take a peek at how much the company is expected to grow in the next few years.
How Easily Can Twist Bioscience Raise Cash?
There's no doubt Twist Bioscience 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. Generally speaking, a listed business can raise new cash through issuing shares or taking on debt. Commonly, a business will sell new shares in itself to raise cash and drive 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.
Twist Bioscience has a market capitalisation of US$3.0b and burnt through US$96m last year, which is 3.2% of the company's market value. 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 Twist Bioscience's Cash Burn A Worry?
As you can probably tell by now, we're not too worried about Twist Bioscience's cash burn. In particular, we think its cash runway stands out as evidence that the company is well on top of its spending. And even though its revenue growth wasn't quite as impressive, it was still a positive. One real positive is that analysts are forecasting that the company will reach breakeven. Looking at all the measures in this article, together, we're not worried about its rate of cash burn; the company seems well on top of its medium-term spending needs. An in-depth examination of risks revealed 3 warning signs for Twist Bioscience that readers should think about before committing capital to this stock.
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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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