Are Investors Undervaluing QUIZ plc (LON:QUIZ) By 49%?

Does the June share price for QUIZ plc (LON:QUIZ) reflect what it's really worth? Today, we will estimate the stock's intrinsic value by projecting its future cash flows and then discounting them to today's value. This will be done using the Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) model. 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. For those who are keen learners of equity analysis, the Simply Wall St analysis model here may be something of interest to you.

View our latest analysis for QUIZ

The calculation

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 start off with, we need to estimate the next ten years of cash flows. Seeing as no analyst estimates of free cash flow are available to us, we have extrapolate the previous free cash flow (FCF) from the company's last 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 discount the value of these future cash flows to their estimated value in today's dollars:

10-year free cash flow (FCF) forecast

	2021	2022	2023	2024	2025	2026	2027	2028	2029	2030
Levered FCF (£, Millions)	UK£2.39m	UK£2.32m	UK£2.29m	UK£2.27m	UK£2.26m	UK£2.26m	UK£2.27m	UK£2.28m	UK£2.29m	UK£2.31m
Growth Rate Estimate Source	Est @ -4.2%	Est @ -2.66%	Est @ -1.59%	Est @ -0.83%	Est @ -0.31%	Est @ 0.06%	Est @ 0.32%	Est @ 0.5%	Est @ 0.63%	Est @ 0.71%
Present Value (£, Millions) Discounted @ 8.7%	UK£2.2	UK£2.0	UK£1.8	UK£1.6	UK£1.5	UK£1.4	UK£1.3	UK£1.2	UK£1.1	UK£1.0

("Est" = FCF growth rate estimated by Simply Wall St)
Present Value of 10-year Cash Flow (PVCF) = UK£14m

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 8.7%.

Terminal Value (TV)= FCF₂₀₃₀ × (1 + g) ÷ (r – g) = UK£2.3m× (1 + 0.9%) ÷ (8.7%– 0.9%) = UK£30m

Present Value of Terminal Value (PVTV)= TV / (1 + r)¹⁰= UK£30m÷ ( 1 + 8.7%)¹⁰= UK£13m

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£27m. To get the intrinsic value per share, we divide this by the total number of shares outstanding. Relative to the current share price of UK£0.1, the company appears quite good value at a 49% 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

We would 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 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 QUIZ 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 8.7%, which is based on a levered beta of 1.460. 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.

Looking Ahead:

Although the valuation of a company is important, it 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. Preferably you'd apply different cases and assumptions and see how they would impact the company's valuation. 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 QUIZ, we've compiled three further aspects you should further examine:

1. Risks: Take risks, for example - QUIZ has 2 warning signs (and 1 which is significant) we think you should know about.
2. Future Earnings: How does QUIZ'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. The Simply Wall St app conducts a discounted cash flow valuation for every stock on the AIM every day. If you want to find the calculation for other stocks just search here.

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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. 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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