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. Indeed, China National Culture Group (HKG:745) stock is up 289% in the last year, providing strong gains for shareholders. Having said that, unprofitable companies are risky because they could potentially burn through all their cash and become distressed.

In light of its strong share price run, we think now is a good time to investigate how risky China National Culture Group's cash burn is. 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'.

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How Long Is China National Culture Group'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 China National Culture Group last reported its March 2025 balance sheet in July 2025, it had zero debt and cash worth HK$32m. Looking at the last year, the company burnt through HK$955k. So it had a very long cash runway of many years from March 2025. Even though this is but one measure of the company's cash burn, the thought of such a long cash runway warms our bellies in a comforting way. You can see how its cash balance has changed over time in the image below.

Check out our latest analysis for China National Culture Group

How Well Is China National Culture Group Growing?

China National Culture Group managed to reduce its cash burn by 83% over the last twelve months, which suggests it's on the right flight path. And there's no doubt that the inspiriting revenue growth of 57% assisted in that improvement. Considering these factors, we're fairly impressed by its growth trajectory. Of course, we've only taken a quick look at the stock's growth metrics, here. This graph of historic revenue growth shows how China National Culture Group is building its business over time.

Can China National Culture Group Raise More Cash Easily?

We are certainly impressed with the progress China National Culture Group has made over the last year, but it is also worth considering how costly it would be if it wanted to raise more cash to fund faster growth. 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. 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).

China National Culture Group's cash burn of HK$955k is about 0.6% of its HK$159m market capitalisation. 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.

Is China National Culture Group's Cash Burn A Worry?

As you can probably tell by now, we're not too worried about China National Culture Group's cash burn. For example, we think its revenue growth suggests that the company is on a good path. And even its cash burn relative to its market cap was very encouraging. After taking into account the various metrics mentioned in this report, we're pretty comfortable with how the company is spending its cash, as it seems on track to meet its needs over the medium term. On another note, China National Culture Group has 3 warning signs (and 2 which don't sit too well with us) we think you should know about.

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Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) simplywallst.com.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.