Companies Like Research Frontiers (NASDAQ:REFR) Are In A Position To Invest In Growth
Even when a business is losing money, it's possible for shareholders to make money if they buy a good business at the right price. 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.
Given this risk, we thought we'd take a look at whether Research Frontiers (NASDAQ:REFR) 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'. First, we'll determine its cash runway by comparing its cash burn with its cash reserves.
See our latest analysis for Research Frontiers
Does Research Frontiers Have A Long Cash Runway?
A company's cash runway is the amount of time it would take to burn through its cash reserves at its current cash burn rate. When Research Frontiers last reported its balance sheet in December 2019, it had zero debt and cash worth US$6.6m. In the last year, its cash burn was US$2.1m. Therefore, from December 2019 it had 3.1 years of cash runway. There's no doubt that this is a reassuringly long runway. The image below shows how its cash balance has been changing over the last few years.
How Well Is Research Frontiers Growing?
At first glance it's a bit worrying to see that Research Frontiers actually boosted its cash burn by 3.1%, year on year. The revenue growth of 5.1% gives a ray of hope, at the very least. Considering both these factors, we're not particularly excited by its growth profile. Of course, we've only taken a quick look at the stock's growth metrics, here. This graph of historic earnings and revenue shows how Research Frontiers is building its business over time.
How Hard Would It Be For Research Frontiers To Raise More Cash For Growth?
While Research Frontiers seems to be in a decent position, we reckon it is still worth thinking about how easily it could raise more cash, if that proved desirable. Companies can raise capital through either debt or equity. Commonly, a business will sell new shares in itself to raise cash to drive 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.
Research Frontiers's cash burn of US$2.1m is about 3.3% of its US$64m market capitalisation. Given that is a rather small percentage, it would probably be really easy for the company to fund another year's growth by issuing some new shares to investors, or even by taking out a loan.
So, Should We Worry About Research Frontiers's Cash Burn?
As you can probably tell by now, we're not too worried about Research Frontiers's cash burn. In particular, we think its cash runway stands out as evidence that the company is well on top of its spending. While its increasing cash burn wasn't great, the other factors mentioned in this article more than make up for weakness on that measure. After taking into account the various metrics mentioned in this report, we're pretty comfortable with how the company is spending its cash, as it seems on track to meet its needs over the medium term. Its important for readers to be cognizant of the risks that can affect the company's operations, and we've picked out 5 warning signs for Research Frontiers that investors should know when investing in the stock.
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)
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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