Is China Merchants Port Holdings Company Limited (HKG:144) Trading At A 25% Discount?

In this article we are going to estimate the intrinsic value of China Merchants Port Holdings Company Limited (HKG:144) by taking the expected future cash flows and discounting them to today's value. We will take advantage of the Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) model for this purpose. 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. Anyone interested in learning a bit more about intrinsic value should have a read of the Simply Wall St analysis model.

View our latest analysis for China Merchants Port Holdings

What's the estimated valuation?

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. In the first stage we need to estimate the cash flows to the business over the next ten years. 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) estimate

	2022	2023	2024	2025	2026	2027	2028	2029	2030	2031
Levered FCF (HK$, Millions)	HK$4.66b	HK$4.91b	HK$5.01b	HK$5.10b	HK$5.19b	HK$5.28b	HK$5.36b	HK$5.45b	HK$5.53b	HK$5.62b
Growth Rate Estimate Source	Analyst x1	Analyst x1	Est @ 2.06%	Est @ 1.88%	Est @ 1.76%	Est @ 1.68%	Est @ 1.62%	Est @ 1.58%	Est @ 1.55%	Est @ 1.53%
Present Value (HK$, Millions) Discounted @ 10%	HK$4.2k	HK$4.0k	HK$3.8k	HK$3.5k	HK$3.2k	HK$3.0k	HK$2.7k	HK$2.5k	HK$2.3k	HK$2.1k

("Est" = FCF growth rate estimated by Simply Wall St)
Present Value of 10-year Cash Flow (PVCF) = HK$31b

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 10%.

Terminal Value (TV)= FCF₂₀₃₁ × (1 + g) ÷ (r – g) = HK$5.6b× (1 + 1.5%) ÷ (10%– 1.5%) = HK$66b

Present Value of Terminal Value (PVTV)= TV / (1 + r)¹⁰= HK$66b÷ ( 1 + 10%)¹⁰= HK$25b

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$57b. To get the intrinsic value per share, we divide this by the total number of shares outstanding. Relative to the current share price of HK$11.7, the company appears a touch undervalued at a 25% 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.

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. 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 China Merchants Port 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 10%, which is based on a levered beta of 1.620. 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 ideally won't be the sole piece of analysis you scrutinize for a company. The DCF model is not a perfect stock valuation tool. 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. What is the reason for the share price sitting below the intrinsic value? For China Merchants Port Holdings, we've compiled three additional items you should further examine:

1. Risks: Case in point, we've spotted 4 warning signs for China Merchants Port Holdings you should be aware of.
2. Future Earnings: How does 144'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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