Estimating The Fair Value Of UTS Marketing Solutions Holdings Limited (HKG:6113)

Key Insights

• The projected fair value for UTS Marketing Solutions Holdings is HK$0.92 based on 2 Stage Free Cash Flow to Equity
• Current share price of HK$0.82 suggests UTS Marketing Solutions Holdings is potentially trading close to its fair value
• Peers of UTS Marketing Solutions Holdings are currently trading on average at a 388% premium

Does the November share price for UTS Marketing Solutions Holdings Limited (HKG:6113) reflect what it's really worth? Today, we will estimate the stock's intrinsic value by taking the forecast future cash flows of the company and discounting them back to today's value. We will take advantage of the Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) model for this purpose. Don't get put off by the jargon, the math behind it is actually quite straightforward.

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 UTS Marketing Solutions Holdings

What's The Estimated Valuation?

We're using the 2-stage growth model, which simply means we take in account two stages of company's growth. In the initial period the company may have a higher growth rate and the second stage is usually assumed to have a stable growth rate. In the first stage we need to estimate the cash flows to the business over the next ten years. 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) estimate

	2025	2026	2027	2028	2029	2030	2031	2032	2033	2034
Levered FCF (MYR, Millions)	RM13.4m	RM12.6m	RM12.1m	RM11.9m	RM11.9m	RM11.9m	RM12.0m	RM12.2m	RM12.4m	RM12.6m
Growth Rate Estimate Source	Est @ -9.39%	Est @ -5.87%	Est @ -3.41%	Est @ -1.68%	Est @ -0.48%	Est @ 0.37%	Est @ 0.96%	Est @ 1.37%	Est @ 1.66%	Est @ 1.87%
Present Value (MYR, Millions) Discounted @ 7.4%	RM12.4	RM10.9	RM9.8	RM9.0	RM8.3	RM7.8	RM7.3	RM6.9	RM6.6	RM6.2

("Est" = FCF growth rate estimated by Simply Wall St)
Present Value of 10-year Cash Flow (PVCF) = RM85m

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 (2.3%) 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 7.4%.

Terminal Value (TV)= FCF₂₀₃₄ × (1 + g) ÷ (r – g) = RM13m× (1 + 2.3%) ÷ (7.4%– 2.3%) = RM258m

Present Value of Terminal Value (PVTV)= TV / (1 + r)¹⁰= RM258m÷ ( 1 + 7.4%)¹⁰= RM127m

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 RM212m. The last step is to then divide the equity value by the number of shares outstanding. Compared to the current share price of HK$0.8, the company appears about fair value at a 11% 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

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 UTS Marketing Solutions Holdings 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 7.4%, which is based on a levered beta of 0.898. 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.

Moving On:

Although the valuation of a company is important, it is only one of many factors that you need to assess for a company. The DCF model is not a perfect stock valuation tool. Preferably you'd apply different cases and assumptions and see how they would impact the company's valuation. For example, changes in the company's cost of equity or the risk free rate can significantly impact the valuation. For UTS Marketing Solutions Holdings, we've put together three pertinent elements you should explore:

1. Risks: Every company has them, and we've spotted 3 warning signs for UTS Marketing Solutions Holdings (of which 1 is concerning!) you should know about.
2. 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!
3. Other Top Analyst Picks: Interested to see what the analysts are thinking? Take a look at our interactive list of analysts' top stock picks to find out what they feel might have an attractive future outlook!

PS. Simply Wall St updates its DCF calculation for every Hong Kong 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.