Yahoo Finance We Think Trigg Mining (ASX:TMG) Needs To Drive Business Growth Carefully
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. Nonetheless, only a fool would ignore the risk that a loss making company burns through its cash too quickly.
So, the natural question for Trigg Mining (ASX:TMG) shareholders is whether they should be concerned by its rate of 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. We'll start by comparing its cash burn with its cash reserves in order to calculate its cash runway.
View our latest analysis for Trigg Mining
Does Trigg Mining 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. As at June 2019, Trigg Mining had cash of AU$50k and no debt. In the last year, its cash burn was AU$487k. So it seems to us it had a cash runway of less than two months from June 2019. To be frank we are alarmed by how short that cash runway is! The image below shows how its cash balance has been changing over the last few years.
How Is Trigg Mining's Cash Burn Changing Over Time?
Trigg Mining 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. The 70% reduction in its cash burn over the last twelve months could be interpreted as a sign that management are worried about running out of cash. Trigg Mining 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 Trigg Mining Raise More Cash Easily?
There's no doubt Trigg Mining'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. Companies can raise capital through either debt or equity. Commonly, a business will sell new shares in itself to raise cash to 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.
Trigg Mining's cash burn of AU$487k is about 11% of its AU$4.5m market capitalisation. As a result, we'd venture that the company could raise more cash for growth without much trouble, albeit at the cost of some dilution.
So, Should We Worry About Trigg Mining's Cash Burn?
Even though its cash runway makes us a little nervous, we are compelled to mention that we thought Trigg Mining's cash burn reduction was relatively promising. Considering all the measures mentioned in this report, we reckon that its cash burn is fairly risky, and if we held shares we'd be watching like a hawk for any deterioration. Notably, our data indicates that Trigg Mining insiders have been trading the shares. You can discover if they are buyers or sellers by clicking on this link.
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.
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.
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