Here's Why We're Not Too Worried About Evgen Pharma's (LON:EVG) Cash Burn Situation

Just because a business does not make any money, does not mean that the stock will go down. 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. But while the successes are well known, investors should not ignore the very many unprofitable companies that simply burn through all their cash and collapse.

Given this risk, we thought we'd take a look at whether Evgen Pharma (LON:EVG) shareholders should be worried about its cash burn. In this report, we will consider the company's annual negative free cash flow, henceforth referring to it as the 'cash burn'. The first step is to compare its cash burn with its cash reserves, to give us its 'cash runway'.

View our latest analysis for Evgen Pharma

Does Evgen Pharma Have A Long Cash Runway?

A cash runway is defined as the length of time it would take a company to run out of money if it kept spending at its current rate of cash burn. As at March 2021, Evgen Pharma had cash of UK£12m and no debt. Importantly, its cash burn was UK£2.9m over the trailing twelve months. So it had a cash runway of about 4.0 years from March 2021. There's no doubt that this is a reassuringly long runway. Depicted below, you can see how its cash holdings have changed over time.

How Is Evgen Pharma's Cash Burn Changing Over Time?

Although Evgen Pharma had revenue of UK£194k in the last twelve months, its operating revenue was only UK£194k in that time period. We don't think that's enough operating revenue for us to understand too much from revenue growth rates, since the company is growing off a low base. So we'll focus on the cash burn, today. With the cash burn rate up 14% in the last year, it seems that the company is ratcheting up investment in the business over time. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but investors should be mindful of the fact that will shorten the cash runway. Clearly, however, the crucial factor is whether the company will grow its business going forward. For that reason, it makes a lot of sense to take a look at our analyst forecasts for the company.

How Hard Would It Be For Evgen Pharma To Raise More Cash For Growth?

While Evgen Pharma does have a solid cash runway, its cash burn trajectory may have some shareholders thinking ahead to when the company may need to raise more cash. Generally speaking, a listed business can raise new cash through issuing shares or taking on debt. One of the main advantages held by publicly listed companies is that they can sell shares to investors to raise cash and fund 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.

Evgen Pharma's cash burn of UK£2.9m is about 20% of its UK£15m market capitalisation. 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.

How Risky Is Evgen Pharma's Cash Burn Situation?

On this analysis of Evgen Pharma's cash burn, we think its cash runway was reassuring, while its increasing cash burn has us a bit worried. Considering all the factors discussed in this article, we're not overly concerned about the company's cash burn, although we do think shareholders should keep an eye on how it develops. On another note, Evgen Pharma has 6 warning signs (and 3 which are a bit unpleasant) we think you should know about.

Of course, you might find a fantastic investment by looking elsewhere. So take a peek at this free list of interesting companies, and this list of stocks growth stocks (according to analyst forecasts)

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