Estimating The Fair Value Of Fuxing China Group Limited (SGX:AWK)
Simply Wall St
6 min read
Today we'll do a simple run through of a valuation method used to estimate the attractiveness of Fuxing China Group Limited (SGX:AWK) as an investment opportunity by estimating the company's future cash flows and discounting them to their present value. We will take advantage of the Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) model for this purpose. Believe it or not, it's not too difficult to follow, as you'll see from our example!
Companies can be valued in a lot of ways, so we would point out that a DCF is not perfect for every situation. For those who are keen learners of equity analysis, the Simply Wall St analysis model here may be something of interest to you.
We are going to use a two-stage DCF model, which, as the name states, takes into account two stages of growth. The first stage is generally a higher growth period which levels off heading towards the terminal value, captured in the second 'steady growth' period. To begin with, we have to get estimates of 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 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, and so the sum of these future cash flows is then discounted to today's value:
10-year free cash flow (FCF) estimate
2023
2024
2025
2026
2027
2028
2029
2030
2031
2032
Levered FCF (CN¥, Millions)
CN¥1.68m
CN¥2.83m
CN¥4.20m
CN¥5.64m
CN¥7.04m
CN¥8.29m
CN¥9.37m
CN¥10.3m
CN¥11.0m
CN¥11.7m
Growth Rate Estimate Source
Est @ 96.82%
Est @ 68.33%
Est @ 48.39%
Est @ 34.43%
Est @ 24.66%
Est @ 17.82%
Est @ 13.03%
Est @ 9.68%
Est @ 7.33%
Est @ 5.69%
Present Value (CN¥, Millions) Discounted @ 15%
CN¥1.5
CN¥2.1
CN¥2.8
CN¥3.2
CN¥3.5
CN¥3.6
CN¥3.6
CN¥3.4
CN¥3.2
CN¥2.9
("Est" = FCF growth rate estimated by Simply Wall St) Present Value of 10-year Cash Flow (PVCF) = CN¥30m
We now need to calculate the Terminal Value, which accounts for all the future cash flows after this ten year period. For a number of reasons a very conservative growth rate is used that cannot exceed that of a country's GDP growth. In this case we have used the 5-year average of the 10-year government bond yield (1.9%) to estimate future growth. In the same way as with the 10-year 'growth' period, we discount future cash flows to today's value, using a cost of equity of 15%.
Present Value of Terminal Value (PVTV)= TV / (1 + r)10= CN¥92m÷ ( 1 + 15%)10= CN¥23m
The total value, or equity value, is then the sum of the present value of the future cash flows, which in this case is CN¥53m. In the final step we divide the equity value by the number of shares outstanding. Relative to the current share price of S$0.6, the company appears around fair value at the time of writing. Remember though, that this is just an approximate valuation, and like any complex formula - garbage in, garbage out.
SGX:AWK Discounted Cash Flow December 19th 2022
The Assumptions
The calculation above is very dependent on two assumptions. The first is the discount rate and the other is the cash flows. You don't have to agree with these inputs, I recommend redoing the calculations yourself and playing with them. 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 Fuxing China Group 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 15%, which is based on a levered beta of 2.000. 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.
Moving On:
Although the valuation of a company is important, it shouldn't be the only metric you look at when researching a company. DCF models are not the be-all and end-all of investment valuation. Preferably you'd apply different cases and assumptions and see how they would impact the company's valuation. For instance, if the terminal value growth rate is adjusted slightly, it can dramatically alter the overall result. For Fuxing China Group, we've put together three further factors you should further research:
Other Solid Businesses: Low debt, high returns on equity and good past performance are fundamental to a strong business. Why not explore our interactive list of stocks with solid business fundamentals to see if there are other companies you may not have considered!
Other Top Analyst Picks: Interested to see what the analysts are thinking? Take a look at our interactive list of analysts' top stock picks to find out what they feel might have an attractive future outlook!
PS. Simply Wall St updates its DCF calculation for every Singaporean stock every day, so if you want to find the intrinsic value of any other stock just search here.
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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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