Companies Like Reabold Resources (LON:RBD) Can Be Considered Quite Risky

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 while history lauds those rare successes, those that fail are often forgotten; who remembers Pets.com?

Given this risk, we thought we'd take a look at whether Reabold Resources (LON:RBD) shareholders should 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. Let's start with an examination of the business's cash, relative to its cash burn.

Check out our latest analysis for Reabold Resources

When Might Reabold Resources Run Out Of Money?

You can calculate a company's cash runway by dividing the amount of cash it has by the rate at which it is spending that cash. As at June 2019, Reabold Resources had cash of UK£2.8m and no debt. In the last year, its cash burn was UK£5.7m. Therefore, from June 2019 it had roughly 6 months of cash runway. With a cash runway that short, we strongly believe that the company must raise cash or else douse its cash burn promptly. Importantly, if we extrapolate recent cash burn trends, the cash runway would be a lot longer. You can see how its cash balance has changed over time in the image below.

How Is Reabold Resources's Cash Burn Changing Over Time?

In our view, Reabold Resources doesn't yet produce significant amounts of operating revenue, since it reported just UK£584k in the last twelve months. As a result, we think it's a bit early to focus on the revenue growth, so we'll limit ourselves to looking at how the cash burn is changing over time. Remarkably, it actually increased its cash burn by 1077% in the last year. Given that sharp increase in spending, the company's cash runway will shrink rapidly as it depletes its cash reserves. Clearly, however, the crucial factor is whether the company will grow its business going forward. So you might want to take a peek at how much the company is expected to grow in the next few years.

How Easily Can Reabold Resources Raise Cash?

Given its cash burn trajectory, Reabold Resources shareholders should already be thinking about how easy it might be for it to raise further cash in the future. Issuing new shares, or taking on debt, are the most common ways for a listed company to raise more money for its business. Commonly, a business will sell new shares in itself to raise cash to 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.

Since it has a market capitalisation of UK£49m, Reabold Resources's UK£5.7m in cash burn equates to about 12% of its 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.

So, Should We Worry About Reabold Resources's Cash Burn?

Even though its increasing cash burn makes us a little nervous, we are compelled to mention that we thought Reabold Resources's cash burn relative to its market cap was relatively promising. Considering all the measures mentioned in this report, we reckon that its cash burn is fairly risky, and if we held shares we'd be watching like a hawk for any deterioration. While it's important to consider hard data like the metrics discussed above, many investors would also be interested to note that Reabold Resources insiders have been trading shares in the company. Click here to find out if they have been buying or selling.

If you would prefer to check out another company with better fundamentals, then do not miss this free list of interesting companies, that have HIGH return on equity and low debt or this list of stocks which are all forecast to grow.

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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