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Companies Like Apollo Minerals (ASX:AON) Can Afford 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. But the harsh reality is that very many loss making companies burn through all their cash and go bankrupt.

So should Apollo Minerals (ASX:AON) 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). Let's start with an examination of the business' cash, relative to its cash burn.

Check out our latest analysis for Apollo Minerals

Does Apollo Minerals Have A Long Cash Runway?

A cash runway is defined as the length of time it would take a company to run out of money if it kept spending at its current rate of cash burn. As at June 2021, Apollo Minerals had cash of AU$3.0m and no debt. In the last year, its cash burn was AU$686k. So it had a cash runway of about 4.4 years from June 2021. A runway of this length affords the company the time and space it needs to develop the business. The image below shows how its cash balance has been changing over the last few years.

debt-equity-history-analysis
debt-equity-history-analysis

How Is Apollo Minerals' Cash Burn Changing Over Time?

In our view, Apollo Minerals doesn't yet produce significant amounts of operating revenue, since it reported just AU$29k in the last twelve months. As a result, we think it's a bit early to focus on the revenue growth, so we'll limit ourselves to looking at how the cash burn is changing over time. Notably, its cash burn was actually down by 69% in the last year, which is a real positive in terms of resilience, but uninspiring when it comes to investment for growth. Admittedly, we're a bit cautious of Apollo Minerals 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 Easily Can Apollo Minerals Raise Cash?

While we're comforted by the recent reduction evident from our analysis of Apollo Minerals' 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. 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.

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Since it has a market capitalisation of AU$38m, Apollo Minerals' AU$686k in cash burn equates to about 1.8% of its market value. So it could almost certainly just borrow a little to fund another year's growth, or else easily raise the cash by issuing a few shares.

Is Apollo Minerals' Cash Burn A Worry?

It may already be apparent to you that we're relatively comfortable with the way Apollo Minerals is burning through its cash. In particular, we think its cash runway stands out as evidence that the company is well on top of its spending. But it's fair to say that its cash burn reduction was also very reassuring. Looking at all the measures in this article, together, we're not worried about its rate of cash burn, which seems to be under control. Separately, we looked at different risks affecting the company and spotted 5 warning signs for Apollo Minerals (of which 2 are a bit unpleasant!) 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.

Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) simplywallst.com.

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.