A Look At The Fair Value Of Etihad Atheeb Telecommunication Company (TADAWUL:7040)

Today we will run through one way of estimating the intrinsic value of Etihad Atheeb Telecommunication Company (TADAWUL:7040) by estimating the company's future cash flows and discounting them to their present value. We will take advantage of the Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) model for this purpose. Before you think you won't be able to understand it, just read on! It's actually much less complex than you'd imagine.

We would caution that there are many ways of valuing a company and, like the DCF, each technique has advantages and disadvantages in certain scenarios. If you want to learn more about discounted cash flow, the rationale behind this calculation can be read in detail in the Simply Wall St analysis model.

See our latest analysis for Etihad Atheeb Telecommunication

The calculation

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. 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 need to discount the sum of these future cash flows to arrive at a present value estimate:

10-year free cash flow (FCF) forecast

	2021	2022	2023	2024	2025	2026	2027	2028	2029	2030
Levered FCF (SAR, Millions)	ر.س67.0m	ر.س67.2m	ر.س69.1m	ر.س72.3m	ر.س76.5m	ر.س81.7m	ر.س87.8m	ر.س94.7m	ر.س102.4m	ر.س111.0m
Growth Rate Estimate Source	Est @ -3.46%	Est @ 0.24%	Est @ 2.83%	Est @ 4.64%	Est @ 5.91%	Est @ 6.8%	Est @ 7.42%	Est @ 7.85%	Est @ 8.16%	Est @ 8.37%
Present Value (SAR, Millions) Discounted @ 14%	ر.س58.8	ر.س51.8	ر.س46.8	ر.س43.0	ر.س40.0	ر.س37.5	ر.س35.4	ر.س33.5	ر.س31.8	ر.س30.3

("Est" = FCF growth rate estimated by Simply Wall St)
Present Value of 10-year Cash Flow (PVCF) = ر.س408m

We now need to calculate the Terminal Value, which accounts for all the future cash flows after this ten year period. 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 (8.9%) 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 14%.

Terminal Value (TV)= FCF₂₀₃₀ × (1 + g) ÷ (r – g) = ر.س111m× (1 + 8.9%) ÷ (14%– 8.9%) = ر.س2.4b

Present Value of Terminal Value (PVTV)= TV / (1 + r)¹⁰= ر.س2.4b÷ ( 1 + 14%)¹⁰= ر.س658m

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 ر.س1.1b. To get the intrinsic value per share, we divide this by the total number of shares outstanding. Relative to the current share price of ر.س37.5, the company appears about fair value at a 20% 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.

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. If you don't agree with these result, have a go at the calculation yourself and play with the 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 Etihad Atheeb Telecommunication 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 14%, which is based on a levered beta of 0.800. 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 is only one of many factors that you need to assess 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?" For example, changes in the company's cost of equity or the risk free rate can significantly impact the valuation. For Etihad Atheeb Telecommunication, there are three further aspects you should further examine:

1. Risks: Every company has them, and we've spotted 2 warning signs for Etihad Atheeb Telecommunication (of which 1 is potentially serious!) 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 Saudi 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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