Yahoo Finance Estimating The Fair Value Of M&C Saatchi plc (LON:SAA)
Today I will be providing a simple run through of a valuation method used to estimate the attractiveness of M&C Saatchi plc (LON:SAA) as an investment opportunity by taking the foreast future cash flows of the company and discounting them back to today’s value. I will use the discounted cash flows (DCF) model. It may sound complicated, but actually it is quite simple! 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 June 2018 so be sure check out the updated calculation by following the link below. Check out our latest analysis for M&C Saatchi
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 begin with we have to get estimates of the next five years of cash flows. Where possible I use analyst estimates, but when these aren’t available I have extrapolated the previous free cash flow (FCF) from the year before. For this growth rate I used the average annual growth rate over the past five years, but capped at a reasonable level. 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 estimate
2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | |
Levered FCF (£, Millions) | £18.50 | £20.80 | £23.20 | £25.87 | £28.85 |
Source | Analyst x1 | Analyst x1 | Extrapolated @ (11.52%) | Extrapolated @ (11.52%) | Extrapolated @ (11.52%) |
Present Value Discounted @ 8.28% | £17.09 | £17.74 | £18.27 | £18.82 | £19.38 |
Present Value of 5-year Cash Flow (PVCF)= UK£91.30m
After calculating the present value of future cash flows in the intial 5-year period we need to calculate the Terminal Value, which accounts for all the future cash flows beyond 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 (1.4%). In the same way as with the 5-year ‘growth’ period, we discount this to today’s value at a cost of equity of 8.3%.
Terminal Value (TV) = FCF2022 × (1 + g) ÷ (r – g) = UK£28.85m × (1 + 1.4%) ÷ (8.3% – 1.4%) = UK£425.06m
Present Value of Terminal Value (PVTV) = TV / (1 + r)5 = UK£425.06m ÷ ( 1 + 8.3%)5 = UK£285.57m
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£376.87m. 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 £4.45. Relative to the current share price of £3.79, the stock is about right, perhaps slightly undervalued at a 14.91% discount to what it is available for right now.
The 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 M&C Saatchi 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:
Although the valuation of a company is important, it shouldn’t be the only metric you look at when researching a company.
For SAA, there are three pertinent aspects you should look at:
Financial Health: Does SAA 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 SAA’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 SAA? 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 pass 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.
