A Look At The Fair Value Of Jacobson Pharma Corporation Limited (HKG:2633)

In this article we are going to estimate the intrinsic value of Jacobson Pharma Corporation Limited (HKG:2633) by estimating the company's future cash flows and discounting them to their present value. One way to achieve this is by employing the Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) model. It may sound complicated, but actually it is quite simple!

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 Jacobson Pharma

Is Jacobson Pharma fairly valued?

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) forecast

	2021	2022	2023	2024	2025	2026	2027	2028	2029	2030
Levered FCF (HK$, Millions)	HK$223.2m	HK$191.6m	HK$173.5m	HK$162.8m	HK$156.6m	HK$153.0m	HK$151.3m	HK$150.8m	HK$151.2m	HK$152.1m
Growth Rate Estimate Source	Est @ -20.85%	Est @ -14.14%	Est @ -9.44%	Est @ -6.16%	Est @ -3.86%	Est @ -2.25%	Est @ -1.12%	Est @ -0.33%	Est @ 0.22%	Est @ 0.61%
Present Value (HK$, Millions) Discounted @ 7.6%	HK$207	HK$166	HK$139	HK$122	HK$109	HK$98.6	HK$90.6	HK$84.0	HK$78.2	HK$73.1

("Est" = FCF growth rate estimated by Simply Wall St)
Present Value of 10-year Cash Flow (PVCF) = HK$1.2b

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 7.6%.

Terminal Value (TV)= FCF₂₀₃₀ × (1 + g) ÷ (r – g) = HK$152m× (1 + 1.5%) ÷ (7.6%– 1.5%) = HK$2.5b

Present Value of Terminal Value (PVTV)= TV / (1 + r)¹⁰= HK$2.5b÷ ( 1 + 7.6%)¹⁰= HK$1.2b

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$2.4b. The last step is to then divide the equity value by the number of shares outstanding. Relative to the current share price of HK$1.3, the company appears around fair value at the time of writing. 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 Jacobson Pharma 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 7.6%, which is based on a levered beta of 0.995. 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:

Valuation is only one side of the coin in terms of building your investment thesis, and it ideally won't be the sole piece of analysis you scrutinize for a company. The DCF model is not a perfect stock valuation tool. Rather it should be seen as a guide to "what assumptions need to be true for this stock to be under/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. For Jacobson Pharma, we've put together three fundamental aspects you should look at:

1. Risks: To that end, you should be aware of the 3 warning signs we've spotted with Jacobson Pharma .
2. Future Earnings: How does 2633'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. 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. 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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