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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. Having said that, unprofitable companies are risky because they could potentially burn through all their cash and become distressed.
So, the natural question for BCM Resources (CVE:B) shareholders is whether they should be concerned by its rate of cash burn. In this report, we will consider the company's annual negative free cash flow, henceforth referring to it as the 'cash burn'. We'll start by comparing its cash burn with its cash reserves in order to calculate its cash runway.
See our latest analysis for BCM Resources
How Long Is BCM Resources's Cash Runway?
A company's cash runway is calculated by dividing its cash hoard by its cash burn. As at May 2019, BCM Resources had cash of CA$24k and no debt. Importantly, its cash burn was CA$162k over the trailing twelve months. That means it had a cash runway of around 2 months as of May 2019. It's extremely surprising to us that the company has allowed its cash runway to get that short! The image below shows how its cash balance has been changing over the last few years.
How Is BCM Resources's Cash Burn Changing Over Time?
Because BCM Resources isn't currently generating revenue, we consider it an early-stage business. Nonetheless, we can still examine its cash burn trajectory as part of our assessment of its cash burn situation. We'd venture that the 80% reduction in cash burn over the last year shows that management are, at least, mindful of its ongoing need for cash. Admittedly, we're a bit cautious of BCM Resources due to its lack of significant operating revenues. We prefer most of the stocks on this list of stocks that analysts expect to grow.
How Hard Would It Be For BCM Resources To Raise More Cash For Growth?
While we're comforted by the recent reduction evident from our analysis of BCM Resources'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. 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.
BCM Resources's cash burn of CA$162k is about 6.9% of its CA$2.3m market capitalisation. That's a low proportion, so we figure the company would be able to raise more cash to fund growth, with a little dilution, or even to simply borrow some money.