Yahoo Finance Estimating The Intrinsic Value Of Transurban Group (ASX:TCL)
How far off is Transurban Group (ASX:TCL) from its intrinsic value? Using the most recent financial data, I am going to take a look at whether the stock is fairly priced by taking the expected future cash flows and discounting them to today’s value. This is done using the discounted cash flows (DCF) model. Don’t get put off by the jargon, the math behind it is actually quite straightforward. Anyone interested in learning a bit more about intrinsic value should have a read of the Simply Wall St analysis model. If you are reading this and its not August 2018 then I highly recommend you check out the latest calculation for Transurban Group by following the link below.
View our latest analysis for Transurban Group
Is TCL fairly valued?
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
2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | |
Levered FCF (A$, Millions) | A$1.06k | A$1.23k | A$1.40k | A$1.63k | A$1.75k |
Source | Analyst x3 | Analyst x3 | Analyst x3 | Analyst x2 | Analyst x2 |
Present Value Discounted @ 8.55% | A$974.62 | A$1.04k | A$1.09k | A$1.18k | A$1.16k |
Present Value of 5-year Cash Flow (PVCF)= AU$5.44b
We now need to calculate the Terminal Value, which accounts for all the future cash flows after the five years. 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 (2.8%). In the same way as with the 5-year ‘growth’ period, we discount this to today’s value at a cost of equity of 8.6%.
Terminal Value (TV) = FCF2022 × (1 + g) ÷ (r – g) = AU$1.75b × (1 + 2.8%) ÷ (8.6% – 2.8%) = AU$31.02b
Present Value of Terminal Value (PVTV) = TV / (1 + r)5 = AU$31.02b ÷ ( 1 + 8.6%)5 = AU$20.58b
The total value, or equity value, is then the sum of the present value of the cash flows, which in this case is AU$26.02b. 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 A$11.7. Relative to the current share price of A$11.89, the stock is fair value, maybe slightly overvalued at the time of writing.
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 Transurban Group 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 8.6%, 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:
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 TCL, I’ve put together three essential factors you should look at:
Financial Health: Does TCL 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 TCL’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 TCL? 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 ASX every 6 hours. If you want to find the calculation for other stocks just search here.
To help readers see past 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. For errors that warrant correction please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com.
