Here's Why Active Biotech (STO:ACTI) Must Use Its Cash Wisely

There's no doubt that money can be made by owning shares of unprofitable businesses. For example, although software-as-a-service business Salesforce.com lost money for years while it grew recurring revenue, if you held shares since 2005, you'd have done very well indeed. But the harsh reality is that very many loss making companies burn through all their cash and go bankrupt.

So, the natural question for Active Biotech (STO:ACTI) shareholders is whether they should be concerned by its rate of cash burn. In this article, we define cash burn as its annual (negative) free cash flow, which is the amount of money a company spends each year to fund its growth. First, we'll determine its cash runway by comparing its cash burn with its cash reserves.

Check out our latest analysis for Active Biotech

How Long Is Active Biotech's 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 2022, Active Biotech had cash of kr38m and no debt. Looking at the last year, the company burnt through kr53m. That means it had a cash runway of around 9 months as of March 2022. That's quite a short cash runway, indicating the company must either reduce its annual cash burn or replenish its cash. The image below shows how its cash balance has been changing over the last few years.

How Is Active Biotech's Cash Burn Changing Over Time?

In our view, Active Biotech doesn't yet produce significant amounts of operating revenue, since it reported just kr6.2m in the last twelve months. Therefore, for the purposes of this analysis we'll focus on how the cash burn is tracking. During the last twelve months, its cash burn actually ramped up 85%. While this spending increase is no doubt intended to drive growth, if the trend continues the company's cash runway will shrink very quickly. 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.

Can Active Biotech Raise More Cash Easily?

Since its cash burn is moving in the wrong direction, Active Biotech shareholders may wish to think ahead to when the company may need to raise more cash. Issuing new shares, or taking on debt, are the most common ways for a listed company to raise more money for its business. One of the main advantages held by publicly listed companies is that they can sell shares to investors to raise cash and fund 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.

Active Biotech has a market capitalisation of kr229m and burnt through kr53m last year, which is 23% of the company's market value. That's not insignificant, and if the company had to sell enough shares to fund another year's growth at the current share price, you'd likely witness fairly costly dilution.

Is Active Biotech's Cash Burn A Worry?

Active Biotech is not in a great position when it comes to its cash burn situation. While its cash burn relative to its market cap wasn't too bad, its increasing cash burn does leave us rather nervous. After looking at that range of measures, we think shareholders should be extremely attentive to how the company is using its cash, as the cash burn makes us uncomfortable. Separately, we looked at different risks affecting the company and spotted 5 warning signs for Active Biotech (of which 3 make us uncomfortable!) you should know about.

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

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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.