Does the May share price for Computacenter plc (LON:CCC) reflect what it's really worth? Today, we will estimate the stock's intrinsic value by taking the forecast future cash flows of the company and discounting them back to today's value. We will take advantage of the Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) model for this purpose. 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. If you still have some burning questions about this type of valuation, take a look at the Simply Wall St analysis model.
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. In the first stage we need to estimate the cash flows to the business over the next ten years. 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.
A DCF is all about the idea that a dollar in the future is less valuable than a dollar today, so we need to discount the sum of these future cash flows to arrive at a present value estimate:
10-year free cash flow (FCF) estimate
2024
2025
2026
2027
2028
2029
2030
2031
2032
2033
Levered FCF (￡, Millions)
UK￡181.6m
UK￡203.5m
UK￡246.8m
UK￡251.0m
UK￡284.0m
UK￡305.3m
UK￡323.0m
UK￡337.8m
UK￡350.5m
UK￡361.5m
Growth Rate Estimate Source
Analyst x4
Analyst x4
Analyst x4
Analyst x1
Analyst x1
Est @ 7.51%
Est @ 5.79%
Est @ 4.58%
Est @ 3.74%
Est @ 3.15%
Present Value (￡, Millions) Discounted @ 7.7%
UK￡169
UK￡176
UK￡198
UK￡187
UK￡196
UK￡196
UK￡192
UK￡187
UK￡180
UK￡172
("Est" = FCF growth rate estimated by Simply Wall St) Present Value of 10-year Cash Flow (PVCF) = UK￡1.9b
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 (1.8%) 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 7.7%.
Present Value of Terminal Value (PVTV)= TV / (1 + r)10= UK￡6.2b÷ ( 1 + 7.7%)10= UK￡3.0b
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￡4.8b. To get the intrinsic value per share, we divide this by the total number of shares outstanding. Compared to the current share price of UK￡28.4, the company appears quite undervalued at a 33% discount to where the stock price trades currently. Valuations are imprecise instruments though, rather like a telescope - move a few degrees and end up in a different galaxy. Do keep this in mind.
dcf
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 Computacenter 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 7.7%, which is based on a levered beta of 1.078. 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.
SWOT Analysis for Computacenter
Strength
Debt is not viewed as a risk.
Dividends are covered by earnings and cash flows.
Weakness
Earnings growth over the past year underperformed the IT industry.
Dividend is low compared to the top 25% of dividend payers in the IT market.
Opportunity
Annual earnings are forecast to grow for the next 3 years.
Good value based on P/E ratio and estimated fair value.
Threat
Annual earnings are forecast to grow slower than the British market.
Moving On:
Whilst important, the DCF calculation is only one of many factors that you need to assess for 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?" 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. What is the reason for the share price sitting below the intrinsic value? For Computacenter, we've compiled three further factors you should explore:
Future Earnings: How does CCC'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 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!
PS. The Simply Wall St app conducts a discounted cash flow valuation for every stock on the LSE every day. If you want to find the calculation for other stocks 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.
