Will Kairos Minerals (ASX:KAI) Spend Its Cash Wisely?
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 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. Having said that, unprofitable companies are risky because they could potentially burn through all their cash and become distressed.
Given this risk, we thought we'd take a look at whether Kairos Minerals (ASX:KAI) shareholders should be worried about its cash burn. For the purpose of this article, we'll define cash burn as the amount of cash the company is spending each year to fund its growth (also called its negative free cash flow). Let's start with an examination of the business' cash, relative to its cash burn.
Check out our latest analysis for Kairos Minerals
How Long Is Kairos Minerals' 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. In June 2023, Kairos Minerals had AU$4.1m in cash, and was debt-free. Looking at the last year, the company burnt through AU$6.7m. Therefore, from June 2023 it had roughly 7 months of cash runway. To be frank, this kind of short runway puts us on edge, as it indicates the company must reduce its cash burn significantly, or else raise cash imminently. Depicted below, you can see how its cash holdings have changed over time.
How Is Kairos Minerals' Cash Burn Changing Over Time?
While Kairos Minerals did record statutory revenue of AU$671k over the last year, it didn't have any revenue from operations. To us, that makes it a pre-revenue company, so we'll look to its cash burn trajectory as an assessment of its cash burn situation. As it happens, the company's cash burn reduced by 20% over the last year, which suggests that management are mindful of the possibility of running out of cash. Admittedly, we're a bit cautious of Kairos Minerals due to its lack of significant operating revenues. We prefer most of the stocks on this list of stocks that analysts expect to grow.
How Easily Can Kairos Minerals Raise Cash?
Even though it has reduced its cash burn recently, shareholders should still consider how easy it would be for Kairos Minerals to raise more cash in the future. 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. 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.
Since it has a market capitalisation of AU$58m, Kairos Minerals' AU$6.7m in cash burn equates to about 12% of its market value. As a result, we'd venture that the company could raise more cash for growth without much trouble, albeit at the cost of some dilution.
Is Kairos Minerals' Cash Burn A Worry?
Even though its cash runway makes us a little nervous, we are compelled to mention that we thought Kairos Minerals' cash burn relative to its market cap was relatively promising. Summing up, we think the Kairos Minerals' cash burn is a risk, based on the factors we mentioned in this article. Separately, we looked at different risks affecting the company and spotted 5 warning signs for Kairos Minerals (of which 3 are a bit unpleasant!) you should know about.
Of course Kairos Minerals may not be the best stock to buy. So you may wish to see this free collection of companies boasting high return on equity, or this list of stocks that insiders are buying.
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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.
