Calculating The Fair Value Of JD Sports Fashion plc (LON:JD.)

Does the September share price for JD Sports Fashion plc (LON:JD.) 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. This will be done using the Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) model. Don't get put off by the jargon, the math behind it is actually quite straightforward.

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. If you still have some burning questions about this type of valuation, take a look at the Simply Wall St analysis model.

See our latest analysis for JD Sports Fashion

The 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. To start off with, we need to estimate 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£99.0m	UK£352.7m	UK£378.1m	UK£523.4m	UK£634.1m	UK£730.2m	UK£810.4m	UK£875.7m	UK£928.2m	UK£970.6m
Growth Rate Estimate Source	Analyst x5	Analyst x7	Analyst x4	Analyst x1	Est @ 21.14%	Est @ 15.17%	Est @ 10.98%	Est @ 8.05%	Est @ 6%	Est @ 4.57%
Present Value (£, Millions) Discounted @ 9.8%	UK£90.2	UK£293	UK£286	UK£360	UK£397	UK£417	UK£421	UK£414	UK£400	UK£381

("Est" = FCF growth rate estimated by Simply Wall St)
Present Value of 10-year Cash Flow (PVCF) = UK£3.5b

After calculating the present value of future cash flows in the initial 10-year period, we need to calculate the Terminal Value, which accounts for all future cash flows beyond the first stage. 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 (1.2%) 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 9.8%.

Terminal Value (TV)= FCF₂₀₃₀ × (1 + g) ÷ (r – g) = UK£971m× (1 + 1.2%) ÷ (9.8%– 1.2%) = UK£11b

Present Value of Terminal Value (PVTV)= TV / (1 + r)¹⁰= UK£11b÷ ( 1 + 9.8%)¹⁰= UK£4.5b

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£8.0b. 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£8.0, the company appears about fair value at a 2.6% 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.

dcf

The 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 JD Sports Fashion 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 9.8%, which is based on a levered beta of 1.240. 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 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. Instead the best use for a DCF model is to test certain assumptions and theories to see if they would lead to the company being undervalued or overvalued. For instance, if the terminal value growth rate is adjusted slightly, it can dramatically alter the overall result. For JD Sports Fashion, we've put together three relevant factors you should explore:

1. Risks: You should be aware of the 3 warning signs for JD Sports Fashion we've uncovered before considering an investment in the company.

2. Future Earnings: How does JD.'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.

3. 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. 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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