Yahoo Finance A Look At The Fair Value Of Fresenius Medical Care AG & Co. KGaA (ETR:FME)
Does the January share price for Fresenius Medical Care AG & Co. KGaA (ETR:FME) reflect it’s really worth? Today, I will calculate the stock’s intrinsic value by taking the expected future cash flows and discounting them to their present value. This is done using 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 January 2019 so be sure check out the updated calculation by following the link below.
See our latest analysis for Fresenius Medical Care KGaA
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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. For this I used the consensus of the analysts covering the stock, as you can see below. The sum of these cash flows is then discounted to today’s value.
5-year cash flow forecast
2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | |
Levered FCF (€, Millions) | €1.24k | €1.43k | €1.59k | €1.68k | €1.82k |
Source | Analyst x13 | Analyst x11 | Analyst x3 | Analyst x3 | Analyst x3 |
Present Value Discounted @ 8.05% | €1.15k | €1.22k | €1.26k | €1.23k | €1.23k |
Present Value of 5-year Cash Flow (PVCF)= €6.1b
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 (0.2%). 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%.
Terminal Value (TV) = FCF2023 × (1 + g) ÷ (r – g) = €1.8b × (1 + 0.2%) ÷ (8% – 0.2%) = €23b
Present Value of Terminal Value (PVTV) = TV / (1 + r)5 = €23b ÷ ( 1 + 8%)5 = €16b
The total value, or equity value, is then the sum of the present value of the cash flows, which in this case is €22b. 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 €71.48. Compared to the current share price of €62.98, the stock is about right, perhaps slightly undervalued at a 12% 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 Fresenius Medical Care KGaA 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%, 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 FME, I’ve put together three pertinent factors you should further examine:
Financial Health: Does FME 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 FME’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 FME? 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 ETR 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.
