Yahoo Finance We're Keeping An Eye On MPV Exploration's (CNSX:MPV) Cash Burn Rate
We can readily understand why investors are attracted to unprofitable companies. 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. But while history lauds those rare successes, those that fail are often forgotten; who remembers Pets.com?
So should MPV Exploration (CNSX:MPV) shareholders 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. The first step is to compare its cash burn with its cash reserves, to give us its 'cash runway'.
See our latest analysis for MPV Exploration
When Might MPV Exploration Run Out Of Money?
A company's cash runway is calculated by dividing its cash hoard by its cash burn. As at June 2019, MPV Exploration had cash of CA$1.1m and no debt. In the last year, its cash burn was CA$579k. Therefore, from June 2019 it had 2.0 years of cash runway. 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. The image below shows how its cash balance has been changing over the last few years.
How Is MPV Exploration's Cash Burn Changing Over Time?
MPV Exploration 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. Over the last year its cash burn actually increased by a very significant 95%. While this spending increase is no doubt intended to drive growth, if the trend continues the company's cash runway will shrink very quickly. Admittedly, we're a bit cautious of MPV Exploration due to its lack of significant operating revenues. So we'd generally prefer stocks from this list of stocks that have analysts forecasting growth.
Can MPV Exploration Raise More Cash Easily?
While MPV Exploration does have a solid cash runway, its cash burn trajectory may have some shareholders thinking ahead to when the company may need to raise more cash. 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 to drive 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.
MPV Exploration has a market capitalisation of CA$1.4m and burnt through CA$579k last year, which is 40% of the company's market value. That's fairly notable cash burn, so if the company had to sell shares to cover the cost of another year's operations, shareholders would suffer some costly dilution.
Is MPV Exploration's Cash Burn A Worry?
On this analysis of MPV Exploration's cash burn, we think its cash runway was reassuring, while its increasing cash burn 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. While it's important to consider hard data like the metrics discussed above, many investors would also be interested to note that MPV Exploration insiders have been trading shares in the company. Click here to find out if they have been buying or selling.
Of course MPV Exploration 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.
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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. Thank you for reading.
