XBiotech (NASDAQ:XBIT) Is In A Good Position To Deliver On Growth Plans

We can readily understand why investors are attracted to unprofitable companies. 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 XBiotech (NASDAQ:XBIT) 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'. Let's start with an examination of the business' cash, relative to its cash burn.

View our latest analysis for XBiotech

When Might XBiotech Run Out Of Money?

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 December 2020, XBiotech had cash of US$237m and no debt. In the last year, its cash burn was US$69m. That means it had a cash runway of about 3.4 years as of December 2020. A runway of this length affords the company the time and space it needs to develop the business. You can see how its cash balance has changed over time in the image below.

How Is XBiotech's Cash Burn Changing Over Time?

In the last year, XBiotech did book revenue of US$44m, but its revenue from operations was less, at just US$44m. 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. Remarkably, it actually increased its cash burn by 261% in the last year. Given that sharp increase in spending, the company's cash runway will shrink rapidly as it depletes its cash reserves. In reality, this article only makes a short study of the company's growth data. This graph of historic earnings and revenue shows how XBiotech is building its business over time.

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

While XBiotech 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. 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. By comparing a company's annual cash burn to its total market capitalisation, we can estimate roughly how many shares it would have to issue in order to run the company for another year (at the same burn rate).

Since it has a market capitalisation of US$509m, XBiotech's US$69m in cash burn equates to about 14% 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.

How Risky Is XBiotech's Cash Burn Situation?

Even though its increasing cash burn makes us a little nervous, we are compelled to mention that we thought XBiotech's cash runway was relatively promising. Based on the factors mentioned in this article, we think its cash burn situation warrants some attention from shareholders, but we don't think they should be worried. An in-depth examination of risks revealed 1 warning sign for XBiotech that readers should think about before committing capital to this stock.

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