A Look At The Fair Value Of Genuine Parts Company (NYSE:GPC)

Daisy Mock

Mon, Feb 18, 2019, 5:27 AM

Today I will be providing a simple run through of a valuation method used to estimate the attractiveness of Genuine Parts Company (NYSE:GPC) as an investment opportunity by taking the expected future cash flows and discounting them to their present value. I will be 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. Please also note that this article was written in February 2019 so be sure check out the updated calculation by following the link below.

Check out our latest analysis for Genuine Parts

The model

I use what is known as a 2-stage model, which simply means we have two different periods of varying growth rates for the company’s cash flows. Generally the first stage is higher growth, and the second stage is a more stable growth phase. 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)	$915.00	$992.00	$1.03k	$1.07k	$1.11k
Source	Analyst x3	Analyst x2	Est @ 3.9%	Est @ 3.9%	Est @ 3.9%
Present Value Discounted @ 10.07%	$831.28	$818.77	$772.82	$729.46	$688.52

Present Value of 5-year Cash Flow (PVCF)= US$3.8b

The second stage is also known as Terminal Value, this is the business’s cash flow after the first stage. For a number of reasons a very conservative growth rate is used that cannot exceed that of the GDP. In this case I have used the 10-year government bond rate (2.7%). In the same way as with the 5-year ‘growth’ period, we discount this to today’s value at a cost of equity of 10.1%.

Terminal Value (TV) = FCF₂₀₂₃ × (1 + g) ÷ (r – g) = US$1.1b × (1 + 2.7%) ÷ (10.1% – 2.7%) = US$16b

Present Value of Terminal Value (PVTV) = TV / (1 + r)⁵ = US$16b ÷ ( 1 + 10.1%)⁵ = US$9.6b

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 US$13b. To get the intrinsic value per share, we divide this by the total number of shares outstanding, or the equivalent number if this is a depositary receipt or ADR. This results in an intrinsic value of $91.82. Relative to the current share price of $107.59, the stock is fair value, maybe slightly overvalued and not available at a discount at this time.

NYSE:GPC Intrinsic Value Export February 18th 19

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 my inputs, I recommend redoing the calculations yourself and playing with them. Because we are looking at Genuine Parts 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 10.1%, which is based on a levered beta of 1.01. 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 GPC, I’ve compiled three pertinent aspects you should further research:

Financial Health: Does GPC 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 GPC’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 GPC? Explore our interactive list of high quality stocks to get an idea of what else is out there you may be missing!

PS. The Simply Wall St app conducts a discounted cash flow for every stock on the NYSE every 6 hours. If you want to find the calculation for other stocks just search here.

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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. On rare occasion, data errors may occur. Thank you for reading.