There's no doubt that money can be made by owning shares of unprofitable businesses. 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. Nonetheless, only a fool would ignore the risk that a loss making company burns through its cash too quickly.

Given this risk, we thought we'd take a look at whether Alset International (Catalist:40V) shareholders should 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). We'll start by comparing its cash burn with its cash reserves in order to calculate its cash runway.

See our latest analysis for Alset International

When Might Alset International Run Out Of Money?

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 December 2022, Alset International had cash of S$27m and no debt. Importantly, its cash burn was S$11m over the trailing twelve months. That means it had a cash runway of about 2.5 years as of December 2022. Arguably, that's a prudent and sensible length of runway to have. Depicted below, you can see how its cash holdings have changed over time.

How Well Is Alset International Growing?

It was quite stunning to see that Alset International increased its cash burn by 294% over the last year. That's bad enough, but the operating revenue drop of 89% points to a period of uncertainty and, quite potentially, heightened risk for holders." Considering these two factors together makes us nervous about the direction the company seems to be heading. In reality, this article only makes a short study of the company's growth data. You can take a look at how Alset International has developed its business over time by checking this visualization of its revenue and earnings history.

Can Alset International Raise More Cash Easily?

Alset International revenue is declining and its cash burn is increasing, so many may be considering its need to raise more cash in the future. Companies can raise capital through either debt or equity. Commonly, a business will sell new shares in itself to raise cash and drive 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.

Alset International has a market capitalisation of S$70m and burnt through S$11m last year, which is 15% of the company's market value. Given that situation, it's fair to say the company wouldn't have much trouble raising more cash for growth, but shareholders would be somewhat diluted.