We Think Jericho Oil (CVE:JCO) Can Afford To Drive Business Growth
We can readily understand why investors are attracted to unprofitable companies. For example, biotech and mining exploration companies often lose money for years before finding success with a new treatment or mineral discovery. 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.
So should Jericho Oil (CVE:JCO) shareholders 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'. The first step is to compare its cash burn with its cash reserves, to give us its 'cash runway'.
View our latest analysis for Jericho Oil
How Long Is Jericho Oil'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 June 2019, Jericho Oil had cash of CA$2.9m and no debt. In the last year, its cash burn was CA$1.9m. That means it had a cash runway of around 18 months as of June 2019. That's not too bad, but it's fair to say the end of the cash runway is in sight, unless cash burn reduces drastically. Depicted below, you can see how its cash holdings have changed over time.
How Is Jericho Oil's Cash Burn Changing Over Time?
In our view, Jericho Oil doesn't yet produce significant amounts of operating revenue, since it reported just CA$316k in the last twelve months. Therefore, for the purposes of this analysis we'll focus on how the cash burn is tracking. With cash burn dropping by 11% it seems management feel the company is spending enough to advance its business plans at an appropriate pace. Admittedly, we're a bit cautious of Jericho Oil due to its lack of significant operating revenues. So we'd generally prefer stocks from this list of stocks that have analysts forecasting growth.
How Hard Would It Be For Jericho Oil 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 Jericho Oil to raise more cash in the future. Issuing new shares, or taking on debt, are the most common ways for a listed company to raise more money for its business. Commonly, a business will sell new shares in itself to raise cash to drive growth. By looking at a company's cash burn relative to its market capitalisation, we gain insight on how much shareholders would be diluted if the company needed to raise enough cash to cover another year's cash burn.
Jericho Oil has a market capitalisation of CA$31m and burnt through CA$1.9m last year, which is 6.1% of the company's market value. 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.
How Risky Is Jericho Oil's Cash Burn Situation?
The good news is that in our view Jericho Oil's cash burn situation gives shareholders real reason for optimism. One the one hand we have its solid cash runway, while on the other it can also boast very strong cash burn relative to its market cap. Cash burning companies are always on the riskier side of things, but after considering all of the factors discussed in this short piece, we're not too worried about its rate of cash burn. Notably, our data indicates that Jericho Oil insiders have been trading the shares. You can discover if they are buyers or sellers by clicking on this link.
Of course Jericho Oil 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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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. Thank you for reading.
