ECO Animal Health Group plc (LON:EAH) Shares Could Be 48% Below Their Intrinsic Value Estimate

How far off is ECO Animal Health Group plc (LON:EAH) from its intrinsic value? Using the most recent financial data, we'll take a look at whether the stock is fairly priced by projecting its future cash flows and then discounting them to today's value. One way to achieve this is by employing the Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) model. Before you think you won't be able to understand it, just read on! It's actually much less complex than you'd imagine.

Remember though, that there are many ways to estimate a company's value, and a DCF is just one method. If you still have some burning questions about this type of valuation, take a look at the Simply Wall St analysis model.

View our latest analysis for ECO Animal Health Group

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 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.

A DCF is all about the idea that a dollar in the future is less valuable than a dollar today, 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) forecast

	2022	2023	2024	2025	2026	2027	2028	2029	2030	2031
Levered FCF (£, Millions)	UK£13.2m	UK£9.35m	UK£11.0m	UK£11.3m	UK£11.5m	UK£11.7m	UK£11.8m	UK£12.0m	UK£12.1m	UK£12.2m
Growth Rate Estimate Source	Analyst x2	Analyst x2	Analyst x2	Est @ 2.31%	Est @ 1.88%	Est @ 1.59%	Est @ 1.38%	Est @ 1.24%	Est @ 1.14%	Est @ 1.07%
Present Value (£, Millions) Discounted @ 4.8%	UK£12.6	UK£8.5	UK£9.6	UK£9.3	UK£9.1	UK£8.8	UK£8.5	UK£8.2	UK£7.9	UK£7.7

("Est" = FCF growth rate estimated by Simply Wall St)
Present Value of 10-year Cash Flow (PVCF) = UK£90m

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 5-year average of the 10-year government bond yield (0.9%) 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 4.8%.

Terminal Value (TV)= FCF₂₀₃₁ × (1 + g) ÷ (r – g) = UK£12m× (1 + 0.9%) ÷ (4.8%– 0.9%) = UK£316m

Present Value of Terminal Value (PVTV)= TV / (1 + r)¹⁰= UK£316m÷ ( 1 + 4.8%)¹⁰= UK£197m

The total value, or equity value, is then the sum of the present value of the future cash flows, which in this case is UK£287m. The last step is to then divide the equity value by the number of shares outstanding. Relative to the current share price of UK£2.2, the company appears quite undervalued at a 48% 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

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 ECO Animal Health Group 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 4.8%, which is based on a levered beta of 0.800. 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:

Whilst important, the DCF calculation shouldn't be the only metric you look at when researching a company. It's not possible to obtain a foolproof valuation with a DCF model. Instead the best use for a DCF model is to test certain assumptions and theories to see if they would lead to the company being undervalued or 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. Why is the intrinsic value higher than the current share price? For ECO Animal Health Group, we've compiled three fundamental items you should further examine:

1. Risks: Every company has them, and we've spotted 1 warning sign for ECO Animal Health Group you should know about.
2. Future Earnings: How does EAH'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 High Quality Alternatives: Do you like a good all-rounder? 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 British stock every day, so if you want to find the intrinsic value of any other stock just search here.

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.

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