A Look At The Fair Value Of WAC Holdings Limited (HKG:8619)

Today we will run through one way of estimating the intrinsic value of WAC Holdings Limited (HKG:8619) by estimating the company's future cash flows and discounting them to their present value. Our analysis will employ the Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) model. Believe it or not, it's not too difficult to follow, as you'll see from our example!

We generally believe that a company's value is the present value of all of the cash it will generate in the future. However, a DCF is just one valuation metric among many, and it is not without flaws. 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 WAC Holdings

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. 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.

Generally we assume that a dollar today is more valuable than a dollar in the future, 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

	2022	2023	2024	2025	2026	2027	2028	2029	2030	2031
Levered FCF (HK$, Millions)	HK$11.8m	HK$12.6m	HK$13.2m	HK$13.6m	HK$14.1m	HK$14.4m	HK$14.8m	HK$15.1m	HK$15.3m	HK$15.6m
Growth Rate Estimate Source	Est @ 8.08%	Est @ 6.1%	Est @ 4.71%	Est @ 3.74%	Est @ 3.06%	Est @ 2.59%	Est @ 2.26%	Est @ 2.02%	Est @ 1.86%	Est @ 1.75%
Present Value (HK$, Millions) Discounted @ 5.9%	HK$11.2	HK$11.2	HK$11.1	HK$10.8	HK$10.6	HK$10.2	HK$9.9	HK$9.5	HK$9.1	HK$8.8

("Est" = FCF growth rate estimated by Simply Wall St)
Present Value of 10-year Cash Flow (PVCF) = HK$102m

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 (1.5%) 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 5.9%.

Terminal Value (TV)= FCF₂₀₃₁ × (1 + g) ÷ (r – g) = HK$16m× (1 + 1.5%) ÷ (5.9%– 1.5%) = HK$357m

Present Value of Terminal Value (PVTV)= TV / (1 + r)¹⁰= HK$357m÷ ( 1 + 5.9%)¹⁰= HK$201m

The total value, or equity value, is then the sum of the present value of the future cash flows, which in this case is HK$303m. The last step is to then divide the equity value by the number of shares outstanding. Relative to the current share price of HK$0.2, the company appears about fair value at a 15% 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

The calculation above is very dependent on two assumptions. The first is the discount rate and the other is the cash flows. Part of investing is coming up with your own evaluation of a company's future performance, so try the calculation yourself and check your own assumptions. 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 WAC 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 5.9%, which is based on a levered beta of 0.906. 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:

Whilst important, the DCF calculation 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. 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 WAC Holdings, we've compiled three fundamental aspects you should look at:

1. Risks: Every company has them, and we've spotted 5 warning signs for WAC Holdings (of which 1 makes us a bit uncomfortable!) you should know about.
2. 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!
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.

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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