With the business potentially at an important milestone, we thought we'd take a closer look at St Barbara Limited's (ASX:SBM) future prospects. St Barbara Limited, together with its subsidiaries, engages in the exploration, development, mining, and sale of gold. On 30 June 2023, the AU$172m market-cap company posted a loss of AU$507m for its most recent financial year. Many investors are wondering about the rate at which St Barbara will turn a profit, with the big question being “when will the company breakeven?” In this article, we will touch on the expectations for the company's growth and when analysts expect it to become profitable.

View our latest analysis for St Barbara

St Barbara is bordering on breakeven, according to the 3 Australian Metals and Mining analysts. They anticipate the company to incur a final loss in 2024, before generating positive profits of AU$7.0m in 2025. So, the company is predicted to breakeven just over a year from today. What rate will the company have to grow year-on-year in order to breakeven on this date? Using a line of best fit, we calculated an average annual growth rate of 110%, which signals high confidence from analysts. If this rate turns out to be too aggressive, the company may become profitable much later than analysts predict.

Given this is a high-level overview, we won’t go into details of St Barbara's upcoming projects, though, take into account that by and large metals and mining companies, depending on the stage of operation and metals mined, have irregular periods of cash flow. So, a high growth rate is not out of the ordinary, particularly when a company is in a period of investment.

Before we wrap up, there’s one aspect worth mentioning. The company has managed its capital prudently, with debt making up 0.4% of equity. This means that it has predominantly funded its operations from equity capital, and its low debt obligation reduces the risk around investing in the loss-making company.

Next Steps:

There are too many aspects of St Barbara to cover in one brief article, but the key fundamentals for the company can all be found in one place – St Barbara's company page on Simply Wall St. We've also compiled a list of pertinent aspects you should further research:

1. Historical Track Record: What has St Barbara's performance been like over the past? Go into more detail in the past track record analysis and take a look at the free visual representations of our analysis for more clarity.

2. Management Team: An experienced management team on the helm increases our confidence in the business – take a look at who sits on St Barbara's board and the CEO’s background.

3. Other High-Performing Stocks: Are there other stocks that provide better prospects with proven track records? Explore our free list of these great stocks here.

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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.