Estimating The Fair Value Of Vianet Group plc (LON:VNET)

Simply Wall St.

Thu, Oct 25, 2018, 11:41 PM

In this article I am going to calculate the intrinsic value of Vianet Group plc (LON:VNET) by taking the expected future cash flows and discounting them to their present value. This is done using the discounted cash flows (DCF) model. Don’t get put off by the jargon, the math behind it is actually quite straightforward. If you want to learn more about discounted cash flow, the basis for my calcs can be read in detail in the Simply Wall St analysis model. If you are reading this and its not October 2018 then I highly recommend you check out the latest calculation for Vianet Group by following the link below.

See our latest analysis for Vianet Group

Crunching the numbers

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 five years of cash flows. For this I used the consensus of the analysts covering the stock, as you can see below. I then discount this to its value today and sum up the total to get the present value of these cash flows.

5-year cash flow forecast

	2019	2020	2021	2022	2023
Levered FCF (£, Millions)	£2.70	£3.29	£3.00	£2.74	£2.50
Source	Analyst x1	Analyst x1	Est @ -8.8%	Est @ -8.8%	Est @ -8.8%
Present Value Discounted @ 8.28%	£2.49	£2.81	£2.36	£1.99	£1.68

Present Value of 5-year Cash Flow (PVCF)= UK£11m

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 an annual growth rate equal to the 10-year government bond rate of 1.4%. We discount this to today’s value at a cost of equity of 8.3%.

Terminal Value (TV) = FCF₂₀₂₂ × (1 + g) ÷ (r – g) = UK£2m × (1 + 1.4%) ÷ (8.3% – 1.4%) = UK£37m

Present Value of Terminal Value (PVTV) = TV / (1 + r)⁵ = UK£37m ÷ ( 1 + 8.3%)⁵ = UK£25m

The total value is the sum of cash flows for the next five years and the discounted terminal value, which results in the Total Equity Value, which in this case is UK£36m. In the final step we divide the equity value by the number of shares outstanding. If the stock is an depositary receipt (represents a specified number of shares in a foreign corporation) or ADR then we use the equivalent number. This results in an intrinsic value of £1.3. Compared to the current share price of £1.05, the stock is about right, perhaps slightly undervalued at a 20% discount to what it is available for right now.

AIM:VNET Intrinsic Value Export October 26th 18

Important assumptions

Now the most important inputs to a discounted cash flow are the discount rate, and of course, the actual cash flows. You don’t have to agree with my inputs, I recommend redoing the calculations yourself and playing with them. Because we are looking at Vianet Group as potential shareholders, the cost of equity is used as the discount rate, rather than the cost of capital (or weighed average cost of capital, WACC) which accounts for debt. In this calculation I’ve used 8.3%, which is based on a levered beta of 0.800. This is derived from the Bottom-Up Beta method based on 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. For VNET, I’ve put together three essential aspects you should further examine:

Financial Health: Does VNET have a healthy balance sheet? Take a look at our free balance sheet analysis with six simple checks on key factors like leverage and risk.
Future Earnings: How does VNET’s growth rate compare to its peers and the wider market? Dig deeper into the analyst consensus number for the upcoming years by interacting with our free analyst growth expectation chart.
Other High Quality Alternatives: Are there other high quality stocks you could be holding instead of VNET? 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 does a DCF calculation for every GB stock every 6 hours, so if you want to find the intrinsic value of any other stock just search here.

To help readers see past the short term volatility of the financial market, we aim to bring you a long-term focused research analysis purely driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis does not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements.

The author is an independent contributor and at the time of publication had no position in the stocks mentioned. For errors that warrant correction please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com.

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