I am going to run you through how I calculated the intrinsic value of CanWel Building Materials Group Ltd. (TSE:CWX) 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! Anyone interested in learning a bit more about intrinsic value should have a read of 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.
View our latest analysis for CanWel Building Materials Group
Want to help shape the future of investing tools? Participate in a short research study and receive a 6-month subscription to the award winning Simply Wall St research tool (valued at $60)!
The method
We are going to use a two-stage DCF model, which, as the name states, takes into account two stages of growth. The first stage is generally a higher growth period which levels off heading towards the terminal value, captured in the second ‘steady growth’ period. To begin with we have to get estimates of the next five years of cash flows. For this I used the consensus of the analysts covering the stock, as you can see below. I then discount the sum of these cash flows to arrive at a present value estimate.
5-year cash flow estimate
| 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | |
| Levered FCF (CA$, Millions) | CA$38.00 | CA$44.00 | CA$49.66 | CA$56.05 | CA$63.27 |
| Source | Analyst x2 | Analyst x2 | Est @ 12.87% | Est @ 12.87% | Est @ 12.87% |
| Present Value Discounted @ 14.87% | CA$33.08 | CA$33.34 | CA$32.76 | CA$32.19 | CA$31.63 |
Present Value of 5-year Cash Flow (PVCF)= CA$163m
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 (1.9%). In the same way as with the 5-year ‘growth’ period, we discount this to today’s value at a cost of equity of 14.9%.
Terminal Value (TV) = FCF2023 × (1 + g) ÷ (r – g) = CA$63m × (1 + 1.9%) ÷ (14.9% – 1.9%) = CA$499m
Present Value of Terminal Value (PVTV) = TV / (1 + r)5 = CA$499m ÷ ( 1 + 14.9%)5 = CA$249m
The total value, or equity value, is then the sum of the present value of the cash flows, which in this case is CA$412m. The last step is to then 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) then we use the equivalent number. This results in an intrinsic value of CA$5.3. Compared to the current share price of CA$5, the stock is about right, perhaps slightly undervalued at a 5.7% discount to what it is available for right now.
The assumptions
I’d like to point out that 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 CanWel Building Materials 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 14.9%, which is based on a levered beta of 1.605. 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:
Whilst important, DCF calculation shouldn’t be the only metric you look at when researching a company. For CWX, there are three important aspects you should further examine:
- Financial Health: Does CWX 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 CWX’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 CWX? 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 CA stock every 6 hours, so if you want to find the intrinsic value of any other stock 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.