We Think Esports Mogul (ASX:ESH) Needs To Drive Business Growth Carefully
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. 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 Esports Mogul (ASX:ESH) shareholders should be worried about its cash burn. For the purposes of this article, cash burn is the annual rate at which an unprofitable company spends cash to fund its growth; its negative free cash flow. We'll start by comparing its cash burn with its cash reserves in order to calculate its cash runway.
View our latest analysis for Esports Mogul
How Long Is Esports Mogul's Cash Runway?
You can calculate a company's cash runway by dividing the amount of cash it has by the rate at which it is spending that cash. In June 2020, Esports Mogul had AU$2.4m in cash, and was debt-free. In the last year, its cash burn was AU$4.2m. Therefore, from June 2020 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. The image below shows how its cash balance has been changing over the last few years.
How Is Esports Mogul's Cash Burn Changing Over Time?
Whilst it's great to see that Esports Mogul has already begun generating revenue from operations, last year it only produced AU$204k, so we don't think it is generating significant revenue, at this point. As a result, we think it's a bit early to focus on the revenue growth, so we'll limit ourselves to looking at how the cash burn is changing over time. Given the length of the cash runway, we'd interpret the 23% reduction in cash burn, in twelve months, as prudent if not necessary for capital preservation. Esports Mogul makes us a little nervous due to its lack of substantial operating revenue. So we'd generally prefer stocks from this list of stocks that have analysts forecasting growth.
How Hard Would It Be For Esports Mogul To Raise More Cash For Growth?
Even though it has reduced its cash burn recently, shareholders should still consider how easy it would be for Esports Mogul 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.
Esports Mogul's cash burn of AU$4.2m is about 8.6% of its AU$49m market capitalisation. That's a low proportion, so we figure the company would be able to raise more cash to fund growth, with a little dilution, or even to simply borrow some money.
How Risky Is Esports Mogul's Cash Burn Situation?
On this analysis of Esports Mogul's cash burn, we think its cash burn relative to its market cap was reassuring, while its cash runway has us a bit worried. Summing up, we think the Esports Mogul's cash burn is a risk, based on the factors we mentioned in this article. Taking a deeper dive, we've spotted 6 warning signs for Esports Mogul you should be aware of, and 4 of them are potentially serious.
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)
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. 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.
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