Are Investors Undervaluing InnovAge Holding Corp. (NASDAQ:INNV) By 48%?

Today we'll do a simple run through of a valuation method used to estimate the attractiveness of InnovAge Holding Corp. (NASDAQ:INNV) as an investment opportunity by taking the expected future cash flows and discounting them to their present value. One way to achieve this is by employing the Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) model. Believe it or not, it's not too difficult to follow, as you'll see from our example!

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 InnovAge Holding

Is InnovAge Holding fairly valued?

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.

Generally we assume that a dollar today is more valuable than a dollar in the future, and so the sum of these future cash flows is then discounted to today's value:

10-year free cash flow (FCF) estimate

	2022	2023	2024	2025	2026	2027	2028	2029	2030	2031
Levered FCF ($, Millions)	US$4.40m	US$29.8m	US$11.9m	US$73.5m	US$113.0m	US$144.5m	US$173.6m	US$199.1m	US$220.7m	US$238.9m
Growth Rate Estimate Source	Analyst x2	Analyst x1	Analyst x1	Analyst x1	Analyst x1	Est @ 27.89%	Est @ 20.12%	Est @ 14.68%	Est @ 10.87%	Est @ 8.21%
Present Value ($, Millions) Discounted @ 5.9%	US$4.2	US$26.6	US$10.0	US$58.5	US$84.9	US$103	US$116	US$126	US$132	US$135

("Est" = FCF growth rate estimated by Simply Wall St)
Present Value of 10-year Cash Flow (PVCF) = US$795m

After calculating the present value of future cash flows in the initial 10-year period, we need to calculate the Terminal Value, which accounts for all future cash flows beyond 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 (2.0%) 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 5.9%.

Terminal Value (TV)= FCF₂₀₃₁ × (1 + g) ÷ (r – g) = US$239m× (1 + 2.0%) ÷ (5.9%– 2.0%) = US$6.3b

Present Value of Terminal Value (PVTV)= TV / (1 + r)¹⁰= US$6.3b÷ ( 1 + 5.9%)¹⁰= US$3.5b

The total value, or equity value, is then the sum of the present value of the future cash flows, which in this case is US$4.3b. In the final step we divide the equity value by the number of shares outstanding. Relative to the current share price of US$16.6, the company appears quite undervalued at a 48% 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.

The assumptions

The calculation above is very dependent on two assumptions. The first is the discount rate and the other is the 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 InnovAge Holding 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 5.9%, which is based on a levered beta of 0.825. 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:

Although the valuation of a company is important, it 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?" 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. Why is the intrinsic value higher than the current share price? For InnovAge Holding, there are three essential items you should look at:

1. Risks: Be aware that InnovAge Holding is showing 1 warning sign in our investment analysis , you should know about...
2. Future Earnings: How does INNV'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 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!

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