We're A Little Worried About GPS Alliance Holdings's (ASX:GPS) Cash Burn Rate
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.
Given this risk, we thought we'd take a look at whether GPS Alliance Holdings (ASX:GPS) 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. First, we'll determine its cash runway by comparing its cash burn with its cash reserves.
See our latest analysis for GPS Alliance Holdings
Does GPS Alliance Holdings Have A Long 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. As at June 2019, GPS Alliance Holdings had cash of S$34k and no debt. In the last year, its cash burn was S$388k. Therefore, from June 2019 it seems to us it had less than two months of cash runway. To be frank we are alarmed by how short that cash runway is! The image below shows how its cash balance has been changing over the last few years.
How Hard Would It Be For GPS Alliance Holdings To Raise More Cash For Growth?
Generally speaking, a listed business can raise new cash through issuing shares or taking on debt. 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.
Since it has a market capitalisation of S$6.0m, GPS Alliance Holdings's S$388k in cash burn equates to about 6.5% of its 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.
So, Should We Worry About GPS Alliance Holdings's Cash Burn?
Given it's an early stage company, we don't have a lot of data with which to judge GPS Alliance Holdings's cash burn. However, it is fair to say that its cash burn relative to its market cap gave us comfort. From what we can see the company is not in a strong position and there is a clear risk that the cash burn will cause problems for it. When you don't have traditional metrics like earnings per share and free cash flow to value a company, many are extra motivated to consider qualitative factors such as whether insiders are buying or selling shares. Please Note: GPS Alliance Holdings insiders have been trading shares, according to our data. Click here to check whether insiders have been buying or selling.
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)
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