Yahoo Finance Is TOTAL S.A. (EPA:FP) Trading At A 42% Discount?
How far off is TOTAL S.A. (EPA:FP) from its intrinsic value? Using the most recent financial data, we'll take a look at whether the stock is fairly priced by taking the expected future cash flows and discounting them to their present value. I will use the Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) model. It may sound complicated, but actually it is quite simple!
Remember though, that there are many ways to estimate a company's value, and a DCF is just one method. Anyone interested in learning a bit more about intrinsic value should have a read of the Simply Wall St analysis model.
See our latest analysis for TOTAL
Is TOTAL fairly valued?
We use what is known as a 2-stage model, which simply means we have two different periods of growth rates for the company's cash flows. Generally the first stage is higher growth, and the second stage is a lower growth phase. To begin with, we have to get estimates of 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, 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
2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | 2026 | 2027 | 2028 | 2029 | |
Levered FCF ($, Millions) | $12.9b | $14.7b | $15.2b | $16.1b | $16.8b | $17.3b | $17.8b | $18.1b | $18.4b | $18.6b |
Growth Rate Estimate Source | Analyst x11 | Analyst x7 | Analyst x2 | Analyst x2 | Est @ 4.3% | Est @ 3.23% | Est @ 2.48% | Est @ 1.96% | Est @ 1.59% | Est @ 1.33% |
Present Value ($, Millions) Discounted @ 8.29% | $11.9k | $12.6k | $12.0k | $11.7k | $11.3k | $10.7k | $10.2k | $9.6k | $9.0k | $8.4k |
("Est" = FCF growth rate estimated by Simply Wall St)
Present Value of 10-year Cash Flow (PVCF)= $107.3b
The second stage is also known as Terminal Value, this is the business's cash flow after 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 10-year government bond rate (0.7%) 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 8.3%.
Terminal Value (TV) = FCF2029 × (1 + g) ÷ (r – g) = US$19b × (1 + 0.7%) ÷ (8.3% – 0.7%) = US$249b
Present Value of Terminal Value (PVTV) = TV / (1 + r)10 = $US$249b ÷ ( 1 + 8.3%)10 = $112.10b
The total value, or equity value, is then the sum of the present value of the future cash flows, which in this case is $219.38b. To get the intrinsic value per share, we divide this by the total number of shares outstanding. This results in an intrinsic value estimate in the company’s reported currency of $84.24. However, FP’s primary listing is in France, and 1 share of FP in USD represents 0.891 ( USD/ EUR) share of NYSE:TOT, so the intrinsic value per share in EUR is €75.1. Compared to the current share price of €43.49, the company appears quite good value at a 42% 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.
Important assumptions
The calculation above is very dependent on two assumptions. The first is the discount rate and the other is the cash flows. If you don't agree with these result, have a go at the calculation yourself and play with the assumptions. 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 TOTAL 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 8.3%, which is based on a levered beta of 1.136. 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.
Next Steps:
Although the valuation of a company is important, it shouldn’t be the only metric you look at when researching a company. The DCF model is not a perfect stock valuation tool. 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 to differ from the intrinsic value? For TOTAL, There are three important aspects you should further examine:
Financial Health: Does FP 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 FP'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 FP? 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 updates its DCF calculation for every FR stock every day, so if you want to find the intrinsic value of any other stock just search here.
We aim to bring you long-term focused research analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material.
If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com. 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. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading.
