We're Keeping An Eye On Benitec Biopharma's (NASDAQ:BNTC) Cash Burn Rate

We can readily understand why investors are attracted to unprofitable companies. 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 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 Benitec Biopharma (NASDAQ:BNTC) shareholders 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). The first step is to compare its cash burn with its cash reserves, to give us its 'cash runway'.

See our latest analysis for Benitec Biopharma

When Might Benitec Biopharma Run Out Of Money?

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 Benitec Biopharma last reported its balance sheet in September 2021, it had zero debt and cash worth US$16m. Importantly, its cash burn was US$15m over the trailing twelve months. Therefore, from September 2021 it had roughly 13 months of cash runway. While that cash runway isn't too concerning, sensible holders would be peering into the distance, and considering what happens if the company runs out of cash. The image below shows how its cash balance has been changing over the last few years.

How Is Benitec Biopharma's Cash Burn Changing Over Time?

In our view, Benitec Biopharma doesn't yet produce significant amounts of operating revenue, since it reported just US$4.0k in the last twelve months. 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. Over the last year its cash burn actually increased by a very significant 54%. While this spending increase is no doubt intended to drive growth, if the trend continues the company's cash runway will shrink very quickly. Benitec Biopharma 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 Benitec Biopharma To Raise More Cash For Growth?

Given its cash burn trajectory, Benitec Biopharma shareholders may wish to consider how easily it could raise more cash, despite its solid cash runway. Issuing new shares, or taking on debt, are the most common ways for a listed company to raise more money for its business. Many companies end up issuing new shares to fund future 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 US$27m, Benitec Biopharma's US$15m in cash burn equates to about 56% of its market value. From this perspective, it seems that the company spent a huge amount relative to its market value, and we'd be very wary of a painful capital raising.

Is Benitec Biopharma's Cash Burn A Worry?

On this analysis of Benitec Biopharma's cash burn, we think its cash runway was reassuring, while its cash burn relative to its market cap has us a bit worried. After looking at that range of measures, we think shareholders should be extremely attentive to how the company is using its cash, as the cash burn makes us uncomfortable. Separately, we looked at different risks affecting the company and spotted 6 warning signs for Benitec Biopharma (of which 4 are potentially serious!) you should know about.

If you would prefer to check out another company with better fundamentals, then do not miss this free list of interesting companies, that have HIGH return on equity and low debt or this list of stocks which are all forecast to grow.

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.

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