Yahoo Finance Calculating The Intrinsic Value Of Perficient Inc (NASDAQ:PRFT)
How far off is Perficient Inc (NASDAQ:PRFT) from its intrinsic value? Using the most recent financial data, I am going to take a look at whether the stock is fairly priced by estimating the company’s future cash flows and discounting them to their present value. I will use the Discounted Cash Flows (DCF) model. It may sound complicated, but actually it is quite simple! If you want to learn more about discounted cash flow, the basis for my calcs can be read in detail in the Simply Wall St analysis model. If you are reading this and its not June 2018 then I highly recommend you check out the latest calculation for Perficient by following the link below. View out our latest analysis for Perficient
Step by step through 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. To begin with we have to get estimates of the next five years of cash flows. Seeing as no analyst estimates of free cash flow are available I have extrapolated the most recent reported free cash flow (FCF) based on the average annual revenue growth over the past five years. The sum of these cash flows is then discounted to today’s value.
5-year cash flow estimate
2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | |
Levered FCF ($, Millions) | $47.74 | $50.88 | $54.24 | $57.81 | $61.62 |
Source | Extrapolated @ (6.59%) | Extrapolated @ (6.59%) | Extrapolated @ (6.59%) | Extrapolated @ (6.59%) | Extrapolated @ (6.59%) |
Present Value Discounted @ 9.6% | $43.55 | $42.36 | $41.19 | $40.06 | $38.96 |
Present Value of 5-year Cash Flow (PVCF)= US$206.12m
After calculating the present value of future cash flows in the intial 5-year period we need to calculate the Terminal Value, which accounts for all the future cash flows beyond the first stage. The Gordon Growth formula is used to calculate Terminal Value at an annual growth rate equal to the 10-year government bond rate of 2.9%. We discount this to today’s value at a cost of equity of 9.6%.
Terminal Value (TV) = FCF2022 × (1 + g) ÷ (r – g) = US$61.62m × (1 + 2.9%) ÷ (9.6% – 2.9%) = US$953.40m
Present Value of Terminal Value (PVTV) = TV / (1 + r)5 = US$953.40m ÷ ( 1 + 9.6%)5 = US$602.76m
The total value, or equity value, is then the sum of the present value of the cash flows, which in this case is US$808.88m. In the final step we divide the equity value by the number of shares outstanding. If the stock is an depositary receipt (represents a specified number of shares in a foreign corporation) or ADR then we use the equivalent number. This results in an intrinsic value of $23.07. Relative to the current share price of $27.17, the stock is fair value, maybe slightly overvalued at the time of writing.
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 my result, have a go at the calculation yourself and play with the assumptions. Because we are looking at Perficient as potential shareholders, the cost of equity is used as the discount rate, rather than the cost of capital (or weighed average cost of capital, WACC) which accounts for debt. In this calculation I’ve used 9.6%, which is based on a levered beta of 0.944. This is derived from the Bottom-Up Beta method based on comparable companies, with an imposed limit between 0.8 and 2.0, which is a reasonable range for a stable business.
Next Steps:
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.
For PRFT, there are three fundamental aspects you should further examine:
Financial Health: Does PRFT 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.
Future Earnings: How does PRFT’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.
Other High Quality Alternatives: Are there other high quality stocks you could be holding instead of PRFT? 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 does a DCF calculation for every US stock every 6 hours, so if you want to find the intrinsic value of any other stock just search here.
To help readers see pass the short term volatility of the financial market, we aim to bring you a long-term focused research analysis purely driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis does not factor in the latest price sensitive company announcements.
The author is an independent contributor and at the time of publication had no position in the stocks mentioned.
