A Look At The Intrinsic Value Of Chung Hung Steel Corporation (TPE:2014)

Does the February share price for Chung Hung Steel Corporation (TPE:2014) reflect what it's really worth? Today, we will estimate the stock's intrinsic value 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. There's really not all that much to it, even though it might appear quite complex.

Companies can be valued in a lot of ways, so we would point out that a DCF is not perfect for every situation. For those who are keen learners of equity analysis, the Simply Wall St analysis model here may be something of interest to you.

Check out our latest analysis for Chung Hung Steel

The calculation

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. 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.

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

	2021	2022	2023	2024	2025	2026	2027	2028	2029	2030
Levered FCF (NT$, Millions)	NT$2.23b	NT$2.23b	NT$2.15b	NT$2.09b	NT$2.06b	NT$2.04b	NT$2.04b	NT$2.04b	NT$2.04b	NT$2.05b
Growth Rate Estimate Source	Analyst x1	Analyst x1	Est @ -3.98%	Est @ -2.53%	Est @ -1.53%	Est @ -0.82%	Est @ -0.32%	Est @ 0.02%	Est @ 0.26%	Est @ 0.43%
Present Value (NT$, Millions) Discounted @ 9.1%	NT$2.0k	NT$1.9k	NT$1.7k	NT$1.5k	NT$1.3k	NT$1.2k	NT$1.1k	NT$1.0k	NT$934	NT$860

("Est" = FCF growth rate estimated by Simply Wall St)
Present Value of 10-year Cash Flow (PVCF) = NT$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 (0.8%) 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 9.1%.

Terminal Value (TV)= FCF₂₀₃₀ × (1 + g) ÷ (r – g) = NT$2.1b× (1 + 0.8%) ÷ (9.1%– 0.8%) = NT$25b

Present Value of Terminal Value (PVTV)= TV / (1 + r)¹⁰= NT$25b÷ ( 1 + 9.1%)¹⁰= NT$11b

The total value, or equity value, is then the sum of the present value of the future cash flows, which in this case is NT$24b. To get the intrinsic value per share, we divide this by the total number of shares outstanding. Relative to the current share price of NT$17.5, 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

Now 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 Chung Hung Steel 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 9.1%, which is based on a levered beta of 1.347. 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. 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 Chung Hung Steel, there are three fundamental factors you should further examine:

1. Risks: Take risks, for example - Chung Hung Steel has 2 warning signs we think you should be aware of.
2. Future Earnings: How does 2014'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 Taiwanese 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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