A Look At The Fair Value Of Alpha Financial Markets Consulting plc (LON:AFM)
Simply Wall St
6 min read
Today we'll do a simple run through of a valuation method used to estimate the attractiveness of Alpha Financial Markets Consulting plc (LON:AFM) 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. There's really not all that much to it, even though it might appear quite complex.
We would caution that there are many ways of valuing a company and, like the DCF, each technique has advantages and disadvantages in certain scenarios. 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. Where possible we use analyst estimates, but when these aren't available we extrapolate the previous free cash flow (FCF) from the last estimate or 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.
Generally we assume that a dollar today is more valuable than a dollar in the future, and so the sum of these future cash flows is then discounted to today's value:
10-year free cash flow (FCF) estimate
2021
2022
2023
2024
2025
2026
2027
2028
2029
2030
Levered FCF (£, Millions)
UK£16.1m
UK£20.7m
UK£19.3m
UK£18.5m
UK£18.0m
UK£17.7m
UK£17.6m
UK£17.5m
UK£17.6m
UK£17.6m
Growth Rate Estimate Source
Analyst x3
Analyst x3
Analyst x2
Est @ -4.16%
Est @ -2.61%
Est @ -1.53%
Est @ -0.77%
Est @ -0.24%
Est @ 0.13%
Est @ 0.39%
Present Value (£, Millions) Discounted @ 6.6%
UK£15.1
UK£18.2
UK£15.9
UK£14.3
UK£13.1
UK£12.1
UK£11.3
UK£10.6
UK£9.9
UK£9.3
("Est" = FCF growth rate estimated by Simply Wall St) Present Value of 10-year Cash Flow (PVCF) = UK£129m
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 (1.0%) 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 6.6%.
Present Value of Terminal Value (PVTV)= TV / (1 + r)10= UK£320m÷ ( 1 + 6.6%)10= UK£170m
The total value, or equity value, is then the sum of the present value of the future cash flows, which in this case is UK£299m. The last step is to then divide the equity value by the number of shares outstanding. Relative to the current share price of UK£2.4, the company appears about fair value at a 19% discount to where the stock price trades currently. Remember though, that this is just an approximate valuation, and like any complex formula - garbage in, garbage out.
AIM:AFM Discounted Cash Flow January 25th 2021
Important 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. 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 Alpha Financial Markets Consulting 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 6.6%, which is based on a levered beta of 0.934. 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.
Looking Ahead:
Whilst important, the DCF calculation shouldn't be the only metric you look at when researching a company. It's not possible to obtain a foolproof valuation with a DCF model. Rather it should be seen as a guide to "what assumptions need to be true for this stock to be under/overvalued?" For instance, if the terminal value growth rate is adjusted slightly, it can dramatically alter the overall result. For Alpha Financial Markets Consulting, there are three relevant factors you should assess:
Future Earnings: How does AFM'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: Do you like a good all-rounder? 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 British stock every day, so if you want to find the intrinsic value of any other stock just search here.
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. 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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