Yahoo Finance We're Keeping An Eye On Nuheara's (ASX:NUH) Cash Burn Rate
There's no doubt that money can be made by owning shares of unprofitable businesses. For example, biotech and mining exploration companies often lose money for years before finding success with a new treatment or mineral discovery. Nonetheless, only a fool would ignore the risk that a loss making company burns through its cash too quickly.
So should Nuheara (ASX:NUH) shareholders 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 Nuheara
When Might Nuheara Run Out Of Money?
A company's cash runway is calculated by dividing its cash hoard by its cash burn. In June 2021, Nuheara had AU$7.3m in cash, and was debt-free. Importantly, its cash burn was AU$7.9m over the trailing twelve months. So it had a cash runway of approximately 11 months from June 2021. That's quite a short cash runway, indicating the company must either reduce its annual cash burn or replenish its cash. The image below shows how its cash balance has been changing over the last few years.
How Well Is Nuheara Growing?
Nuheara reduced its cash burn by 12% during the last year, which points to some degree of discipline. But this achievement is overshadowed by the brilliant operating revenue growth of 517%. We think it is growing rather well, upon reflection. In reality, this article only makes a short study of the company's growth data. This graph of historic revenue growth shows how Nuheara is building its business over time.
How Easily Can Nuheara Raise Cash?
Nuheara seems to be in a fairly good position, in terms of cash burn, but we still think it's worthwhile considering how easily it could raise more money if it wanted to. Companies can raise capital through either debt or equity. Many companies end up issuing new shares to fund future 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.
Since it has a market capitalisation of AU$29m, Nuheara's AU$7.9m in cash burn equates to about 27% of its market value. That's not insignificant, and if the company had to sell enough shares to fund another year's growth at the current share price, you'd likely witness fairly costly dilution.
Is Nuheara's Cash Burn A Worry?
Even though its cash burn relative to its market cap makes us a little nervous, we are compelled to mention that we thought Nuheara's revenue growth was relatively promising. Even though we don't think it has a problem with its cash burn, the analysis we've done in this article does suggest that shareholders should give some careful thought to the potential cost of raising more money in the future. Taking a deeper dive, we've spotted 6 warning signs for Nuheara you should be aware of, and 2 of them are significant.
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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.
