Catapult Group International (ASX:CAT) Is In A Strong Position To Grow Its Business

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 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. Having said that, unprofitable companies are risky because they could potentially burn through all their cash and become distressed.

So should Catapult Group International (ASX:CAT) shareholders be worried about its cash burn? In this article, we define cash burn as its annual (negative) free cash flow, which is the amount of money a company spends each year to fund its growth. The first step is to compare its cash burn with its cash reserves, to give us its 'cash runway'.

View our latest analysis for Catapult Group International

How Long Is Catapult Group International'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. When Catapult Group International last reported its balance sheet in December 2019, it had zero debt and cash worth AU$25m. Importantly, its cash burn was AU$1.9m over the trailing twelve months. So it had a very long cash runway of many years from December 2019. Notably, however, analysts think that Catapult Group International will break even (at a free cash flow level) before then. If that happens, then the length of its cash runway, today, would become a moot point. Depicted below, you can see how its cash holdings have changed over time.

How Well Is Catapult Group International Growing?

Catapult Group International managed to reduce its cash burn by 85% over the last twelve months, which is extremely promising, when it comes to considering its need for cash. And while hardly exciting, it was still good to see revenue growth of 18% during that time. It seems to be growing nicely. While the past is always worth studying, it is the future that matters most of all. So you might want to take a peek at how much the company is expected to grow in the next few years.

Can Catapult Group International Raise More Cash Easily?

There's no doubt Catapult Group International seems to be in a fairly good position, when it comes to managing its cash burn, but even if it's only hypothetical, it's always worth asking how easily it could raise more money to fund growth. 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 comparing a company's annual cash burn to its total market capitalisation, we can estimate roughly how many shares it would have to issue in order to run the company for another year (at the same burn rate).

Catapult Group International has a market capitalisation of AU$165m and burnt through AU$1.9m last year, which is 1.1% of the company's market value. So it could almost certainly just borrow a little to fund another year's growth, or else easily raise the cash by issuing a few shares.

So, Should We Worry About Catapult Group International's Cash Burn?

As you can probably tell by now, we're not too worried about Catapult Group International's cash burn. For example, we think its cash burn reduction suggests that the company is on a good path. Its revenue growth wasn't quite as good, but was still rather encouraging! It's clearly very positive to see that analysts are forecasting the company will break even fairly soon. Taking all the factors in this report into account, we're not at all worried about its cash burn, as the business appears well capitalized to spend as needs be. Readers need to have a sound understanding of business risks before investing in a stock, and we've spotted 2 warning signs for Catapult Group International that potential shareholders should take into account before putting money into a stock.

Of course Catapult Group International 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.

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.

We aim to bring you long-term focused research analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Thank you for reading.