Estimating The Intrinsic Value Of Wockhardt Limited (NSE:WOCKPHARMA)

Does the February share price for Wockhardt Limited (NSE:WOCKPHARMA) 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. Our analysis will employ the Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) model. Before you think you won't be able to understand it, just read on! It's actually much less complex than you'd imagine.

Companies can be valued in a lot of ways, so we would point out that a DCF is not perfect for every situation. If you still have some burning questions about this type of valuation, take a look at the Simply Wall St analysis model.

See our latest analysis for Wockhardt

Is Wockhardt 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. 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, and so the sum of these future cash flows is then discounted to today's value:

10-year free cash flow (FCF) forecast

	2022	2023	2024	2025	2026	2027	2028	2029	2030	2031
Levered FCF (₹, Millions)	₹1.92b	₹2.10b	₹2.28b	₹2.46b	₹2.65b	₹2.84b	₹3.04b	₹3.26b	₹3.49b	₹3.73b
Growth Rate Estimate Source	Est @ 10.5%	Est @ 9.37%	Est @ 8.58%	Est @ 8.02%	Est @ 7.63%	Est @ 7.36%	Est @ 7.17%	Est @ 7.04%	Est @ 6.95%	Est @ 6.88%
Present Value (₹, Millions) Discounted @ 13%	₹1.7k	₹1.7k	₹1.6k	₹1.5k	₹1.5k	₹1.4k	₹1.3k	₹1.3k	₹1.2k	₹1.1k

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

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 (6.7%) 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 13%.

Terminal Value (TV)= FCF₂₀₃₁ × (1 + g) ÷ (r – g) = ₹3.7b× (1 + 6.7%) ÷ (13%– 6.7%) = ₹68b

Present Value of Terminal Value (PVTV)= TV / (1 + r)¹⁰= ₹68b÷ ( 1 + 13%)¹⁰= ₹21b

The total value, or equity value, is then the sum of the present value of the future cash flows, which in this case is ₹35b. The last step is to then divide the equity value by the number of shares outstanding. Compared to the current share price of ₹373, 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.

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 Wockhardt 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 13%, which is based on a levered beta of 0.910. 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 shouldn't be the only metric you look at when researching 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?" For example, changes in the company's cost of equity or the risk free rate can significantly impact the valuation. For Wockhardt, we've put together three important aspects you should consider:

1. Financial Health: Does WOCKPHARMA have a healthy balance sheet? Take a look at our free balance sheet analysis with six simple checks on key factors like leverage and risk.
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 Environmentally-Friendly Companies: Concerned about the environment and think consumers will buy eco-friendly products more and more? Browse through our interactive list of companies that are thinking about a greener future to discover some stocks you may not have thought of!

PS. Simply Wall St updates its DCF calculation for every Indian 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.