Calculating The Fair Value Of Life360, Inc. (ASX:360)

Key Insights

• The projected fair value for Life360 is AU$9.47 based on 2 Stage Free Cash Flow to Equity
• With AU$7.88 share price, Life360 appears to be trading close to its estimated fair value
• Our fair value estimate is 5.7% higher than Life360's analyst price target of US$8.96

Does the July share price for Life360, Inc. (ASX:360) reflect what it's really worth? Today, we will estimate the stock's intrinsic value by taking the expected future cash flows and discounting them to today's value. We will take advantage of the Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) model for this purpose. Believe it or not, it's not too difficult to follow, as you'll see from our example!

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 Life360

Crunching The Numbers

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 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) forecast

	2024	2025	2026	2027	2028	2029	2030	2031	2032	2033
Levered FCF ($, Millions)	US$24.8m	US$39.6m	US$51.6m	US$62.8m	US$72.7m	US$81.2m	US$88.2m	US$94.2m	US$99.1m	US$103.4m
Growth Rate Estimate Source	Analyst x2	Analyst x2	Est @ 30.21%	Est @ 21.73%	Est @ 15.80%	Est @ 11.65%	Est @ 8.74%	Est @ 6.71%	Est @ 5.28%	Est @ 4.29%
Present Value ($, Millions) Discounted @ 7.9%	US$23.0	US$34.0	US$41.1	US$46.4	US$49.8	US$51.5	US$51.9	US$51.4	US$50.1	US$48.5

("Est" = FCF growth rate estimated by Simply Wall St)
Present Value of 10-year Cash Flow (PVCF) = US$448m

We now need to calculate the Terminal Value, which accounts for all the future cash flows after this ten year period. 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 (2.0%) 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 7.9%.

Terminal Value (TV)= FCF₂₀₃₃ × (1 + g) ÷ (r – g) = US$103m× (1 + 2.0%) ÷ (7.9%– 2.0%) = US$1.8b

Present Value of Terminal Value (PVTV)= TV / (1 + r)¹⁰= US$1.8b÷ ( 1 + 7.9%)¹⁰= US$837m

The total value is the sum of cash flows for the next ten years plus the discounted terminal value, which results in the Total Equity Value, which in this case is US$1.3b. The last step is to then divide the equity value by the number of shares outstanding. Compared to the current share price of AU$7.9, the company appears about fair value at a 17% discount to where the stock price trades currently. Valuations are imprecise instruments though, rather like a telescope - move a few degrees and end up in a different galaxy. Do keep this in mind.

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 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 Life360 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 7.9%, which is based on a levered beta of 0.995. 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.

SWOT Analysis for Life360

Moving On:

Although the valuation of a company is important, it ideally won't be the sole piece of analysis you scrutinize for a company. It's not possible to obtain a foolproof valuation with a DCF model. 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. For Life360, there are three relevant aspects you should explore:

1. Risks: To that end, you should be aware of the 1 warning sign we've spotted with Life360 .
2. Future Earnings: How does 360'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 Australian stock every day, so if you want to find the intrinsic value of any other stock just search here.

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This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. 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.