Yahoo Finance Archer Materials (ASX:AXE) Is In A Strong Position To Grow Its Business
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, although software-as-a-service business Salesforce.com lost money for years while it grew recurring revenue, if you held shares since 2005, you'd have done very well indeed. Having said that, unprofitable companies are risky because they could potentially burn through all their cash and become distressed.
Given this risk, we thought we'd take a look at whether Archer Materials (ASX:AXE) 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. Let's start with an examination of the business' cash, relative to its cash burn.
View our latest analysis for Archer Materials
Does Archer Materials Have A Long Cash Runway?
A company's cash runway is the amount of time it would take to burn through its cash reserves at its current cash burn rate. When Archer Materials last reported its December 2023 balance sheet in February 2024, it had zero debt and cash worth AU$23m. Importantly, its cash burn was AU$2.7m over the trailing twelve months. So it had a cash runway of about 8.2 years from December 2023. While this is only one measure of its cash burn situation, it certainly gives us the impression that holders have nothing to worry about. You can see how its cash balance has changed over time in the image below.
How Is Archer Materials' Cash Burn Changing Over Time?
Although Archer Materials reported revenue of AU$1.8m last year, it didn't actually have any revenue from operations. To us, that makes it a pre-revenue company, so we'll look to its cash burn trajectory as an assessment of its cash burn situation. While it hardly paints a picture of imminent growth, the fact that it has reduced its cash burn by 44% over the last year suggests some degree of prudence. Admittedly, we're a bit cautious of Archer Materials due to its lack of significant operating revenues. We prefer most of the stocks on this list of stocks that analysts expect to grow.
How Hard Would It Be For Archer Materials To Raise More Cash For Growth?
Even though it has reduced its cash burn recently, shareholders should still consider how easy it would be for Archer Materials to raise more cash in the future. Companies can raise capital through either debt or equity. 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.
Archer Materials' cash burn of AU$2.7m is about 2.2% of its AU$127m market capitalisation. That means it could easily issue a few shares to fund more growth, and might well be in a position to borrow cheaply.
How Risky Is Archer Materials' Cash Burn Situation?
As you can probably tell by now, we're not too worried about Archer Materials' cash burn. For example, we think its cash runway suggests that the company is on a good path. And even its cash burn reduction was very encouraging. Taking all the factors in this report into account, we're not at all worried about its cash burn, as the business appears well capitalized to spend as needs be. Taking a deeper dive, we've spotted 4 warning signs for Archer Materials you should be aware of, and 1 of them is a bit unpleasant.
Of course Archer Materials 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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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.
