Yahoo Finance Here's Why We're Not At All Concerned With Société d'Exploration Minière Vior's (CVE:VIO) Cash Burn Situation
We can readily understand why investors are attracted to unprofitable companies. For example, biotech and mining exploration companies often lose money for years before finding success with a new treatment or mineral discovery. But while history lauds those rare successes, those that fail are often forgotten; who remembers Pets.com?
So, the natural question for Société d'Exploration Minière Vior (CVE:VIO) shareholders is whether they should be concerned by its rate of 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's cash, relative to its cash burn.
View our latest analysis for Société d'Exploration Minière Vior
When Might Société d'Exploration Minière Vior Run Out Of Money?
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 March 2020, Société d'Exploration Minière Vior had cash of CA$1.1m and no debt. In the last year, its cash burn was CA$372k. Therefore, from March 2020 it had 3.0 years of cash runway. Arguably, that's a prudent and sensible length of runway to have. You can see how its cash balance has changed over time in the image below.
How Is Société d'Exploration Minière Vior's Cash Burn Changing Over Time?
Whilst it's great to see that Société d'Exploration Minière Vior has already begun generating revenue from operations, last year it only produced CA$276k, so we don't think it is generating significant revenue, at this point. 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 66% in the last year, which is a real positive in terms of resilience, but uninspiring when it comes to investment for growth. Société d'Exploration Minière Vior 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 Société d'Exploration Minière Vior Raise More Cash Easily?
There's no doubt Société d'Exploration Minière Vior's rapidly reducing cash burn brings comfort, but even if it's only hypothetical, it's always worth asking how easily it could raise more money to fund further growth. Generally speaking, a listed business can raise new cash through issuing shares or taking on debt. Many companies end up issuing new shares to fund future 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.
Société d'Exploration Minière Vior's cash burn of CA$372k is about 9.3% of its CA$4.0m market capitalisation. 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.
So, Should We Worry About Société d'Exploration Minière Vior's Cash Burn?
As you can probably tell by now, we're not too worried about Société d'Exploration Minière Vior'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 its cash burn relative to its market cap was very encouraging. 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. Its important for readers to be cognizant of the risks that can affect the company's operations, and we've picked out 3 warning signs for Société d'Exploration Minière Vior that investors should know when investing in the stock.
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.
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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. 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. Thank you for reading.
