Does the April share price for BF Utilities Limited (NSE:BFUTILITIE) reflect what it's really worth? Today, we will estimate the stock's intrinsic value by taking the expected future cash flows and discounting them to their present value. This is done using the Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) model. It may sound complicated, but actually it is quite simple!
Companies can be valued in a lot of ways, so we would point out that a DCF is not perfect for every situation. Anyone interested in learning a bit more about intrinsic value should have a read of the Simply Wall St analysis model.
We use what is known as a 2-stage model, which simply means we have two different periods of growth rates for the company's cash flows. Generally the first stage is higher growth, and the second stage is a lower growth phase. To start off with, we need to estimate the next ten years of cash flows. Seeing as no analyst estimates of free cash flow are available to us, we have extrapolate the previous free cash flow (FCF) from the company's last reported value. We assume companies with shrinking free cash flow are will slow their rate of shrinkage, and that companies with growing free cash flow will see their growth rate slow, over this period. We do this to reflect that growth tends to slow more in the early years than it does in later years.
A DCF is all about the idea that a dollar in the future is less valuable than a dollar today, so we discount the value of these future cash flows to their estimated value in today's dollars:
10-year free cash flow (FCF) estimate
2019
2020
2021
2022
2023
2024
2025
2026
2027
2028
Levered FCF (₹, Millions)
₹2.1k
₹1.9k
₹1.8k
₹1.8k
₹1.8k
₹1.9k
₹2.0k
₹2.1k
₹2.2k
₹2.4k
Growth Rate Estimate Source
Est @ -15.66%
Est @ -8.7%
Est @ -3.82%
Est @ -0.41%
Est @ 1.98%
Est @ 3.65%
Est @ 4.82%
Est @ 5.64%
Est @ 6.21%
Est @ 6.61%
Present Value (₹, Millions) Discounted @ 24.37%
₹1.7k
₹1.2k
₹942
₹754
₹619
₹515
₹434
₹369
₹315
₹270
Present Value of 10-year Cash Flow (PVCF)= ₹7.10b
"Est" = FCF growth rate estimated by Simply Wall St
The second stage is also known as Terminal Value, this is the business's cash flow after the first stage. The Gordon Growth formula is used to calculate Terminal Value at a future annual growth rate equal to the 10-year government bond rate of 7.6%. We discount the terminal cash flows to today's value at a cost of equity of 24.4%.
Present Value of Terminal Value (PVTV) = TV / (1 + r)10 = ₹₹15b ÷ ( 1 + 24.4%)10 = ₹1.73b
The total value is the sum of cash flows for the next ten years plus the discounted terminal value, which results in the Total Equity Value, which in this case is ₹8.82b. In the final step we divide the equity value by the number of shares outstanding. This results in an intrinsic value estimate of ₹234.33. Relative to the current share price of ₹210.9, the company appears about fair value at a 10.0% discount to what it is available for right now. The assumptions in a DCF have a big impact on the valuation, so it is better to view this as a rough estimate, not precise down to the last cent.
NSEI:BFUTILITIE Intrinsic value, April 18th 2019
The assumptions
We would point out that the most important inputs to a discounted cash flow are the discount rate and of course the actual cash flows. Part of investing is coming up with your own evaluation of a company's future performance, so try the calculation yourself and check your own assumptions. The DCF also does not consider the possible cyclicality of an industry, or a company's future capital requirements, so it does not give a full picture of a company's potential performance. Given that we are looking at BF Utilities as potential shareholders, the cost of equity is used as the discount rate, rather than the cost of capital (or weighted average cost of capital, WACC) which accounts for debt. In this calculation we've used 24.4%, which is based on a levered beta of 1.956. Beta is a measure of a stock's volatility, compared to the market as a whole. We get our beta from the industry average beta of globally comparable companies, with an imposed limit between 0.8 and 2.0, which is a reasonable range for a stable business.
Next Steps:
Valuation is only one side of the coin in terms of building your investment thesis, and it shouldn’t be the only metric you look at when researching a company. The DCF model is not a perfect stock valuation tool. Rather it should be seen as a guide to "what assumptions need to be true for this stock to be under/overvalued?" If a company grows at a different rate, or if its cost of equity or risk free rate changes sharply, the output can look very different. For BF Utilities, There are three essential factors you should further examine:
Other High Quality Alternatives: Are there other high quality stocks you could be holding instead of BFUTILITIE? Explore our interactive list of high quality stocks to get an idea of what else is out there you may be missing!
PS. Simply Wall St updates its DCF calculation for every IN stock every day, so if you want to find the intrinsic value of any other stock just search here.
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.
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.
