Yahoo Finance We're Excited To See How Castle Minerals (ASX:CDT) Uses Its Cash Hoard To Grow
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 the harsh reality is that very many loss making companies burn through all their cash and go bankrupt.
So should Castle Minerals (ASX:CDT) shareholders be worried about its cash burn? For the purposes of this article, cash burn is the annual rate at which an unprofitable company spends cash to fund its growth; its negative free cash flow. The first step is to compare its cash burn with its cash reserves, to give us its 'cash runway'.
See our latest analysis for Castle Minerals
Does Castle Minerals 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 Castle Minerals last reported its balance sheet in December 2019, it had zero debt and cash worth AU$330k. Looking at the last year, the company burnt through AU$40k. That means it had a cash runway of about 8.3 years as of December 2019. Even though this is but one measure of the company's cash burn, the thought of such a long cash runway warms our bellies in a comforting way. You can see how its cash balance has changed over time in the image below.
How Is Castle Minerals's Cash Burn Changing Over Time?
Whilst it's great to see that Castle Minerals has already begun generating revenue from operations, last year it only produced AU$1.6k, so we don't think it is generating significant revenue, at this point. Therefore, for the purposes of this analysis we'll focus on how the cash burn is tracking. The good news, from a balance sheet perspective, is that it actually reduced its cash burn by 95% in the last twelve months. That might not be promising when it comes to business development, but it's good for the companies cash preservation. Admittedly, we're a bit cautious of Castle Minerals due to its lack of significant operating revenues. So we'd generally prefer stocks from this list of stocks that have analysts forecasting growth.
How Hard Would It Be For Castle Minerals To Raise More Cash For Growth?
While we're comforted by the recent reduction evident from our analysis of Castle Minerals's cash burn, it is still worth considering how easily the company could raise more funds, if it wanted to accelerate spending to drive growth. 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 comparing a company's annual cash burn to its total market capitalisation, we can estimate roughly how many shares it would have to issue in order to run the company for another year (at the same burn rate).
Castle Minerals has a market capitalisation of AU$1.2m and burnt through AU$40k last year, which is 3.3% of the company's market value. 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.
Is Castle Minerals's Cash Burn A Worry?
As you can probably tell by now, we're not too worried about Castle Minerals's cash burn. In particular, we think its cash burn reduction stands out as evidence that the company is well on top of its spending. But it's fair to say that its cash burn relative to its market cap was also very reassuring. After taking into account the various metrics mentioned in this report, we're pretty comfortable with how the company is spending its cash. Separately, we looked at different risks affecting the company and spotted 4 warning signs for Castle Minerals (of which 2 are potentially serious!) you should know about.
Of course, you might find a fantastic investment by looking elsewhere. So take a peek at this free list of interesting companies, and this list of stocks growth stocks (according to analyst forecasts)
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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