Yahoo Finance Estimating The Fair Value Of Creightons Plc (LON:CRL)
How far off is Creightons Plc (LON:CRL) from its intrinsic value? Using the most recent financial data, we'll take a look at whether the stock is fairly priced by taking the forecast future cash flows of the company and discounting them back to today's value. The Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) model is the tool we will apply to do this. Believe it or not, it's not too difficult to follow, as you'll see from our example!
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. For those who are keen learners of equity analysis, the Simply Wall St analysis model here may be something of interest to you.
See our latest analysis for Creightons
The Method
We use what is known as a 2-stage model, which simply means we have two different periods of growth rates for the company's cash flows. Generally the first stage is higher growth, and the second stage is a lower growth phase. 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.
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) forecast
2023 | 2024 | 2025 | 2026 | 2027 | 2028 | 2029 | 2030 | 2031 | 2032 | |
Levered FCF (£, Millions) | UK£2.04m | UK£2.27m | UK£2.45m | UK£2.59m | UK£2.71m | UK£2.80m | UK£2.87m | UK£2.93m | UK£2.99m | UK£3.03m |
Growth Rate Estimate Source | Est @ 15.22% | Est @ 10.95% | Est @ 7.96% | Est @ 5.87% | Est @ 4.41% | Est @ 3.38% | Est @ 2.66% | Est @ 2.16% | Est @ 1.81% | Est @ 1.56% |
Present Value (£, Millions) Discounted @ 8.7% | UK£1.9 | UK£1.9 | UK£1.9 | UK£1.9 | UK£1.8 | UK£1.7 | UK£1.6 | UK£1.5 | UK£1.4 | UK£1.3 |
("Est" = FCF growth rate estimated by Simply Wall St)
Present Value of 10-year Cash Flow (PVCF) = UK£17m
The second stage is also known as Terminal Value, this is the business's cash flow after the first stage. The Gordon Growth formula is used to calculate Terminal Value at a future annual growth rate equal to the 5-year average of the 10-year government bond yield of 1.0%. We discount the terminal cash flows to today's value at a cost of equity of 8.7%.
Terminal Value (TV)= FCF2032 × (1 + g) ÷ (r – g) = UK£3.0m× (1 + 1.0%) ÷ (8.7%– 1.0%) = UK£40m
Present Value of Terminal Value (PVTV)= TV / (1 + r)10= UK£40m÷ ( 1 + 8.7%)10= UK£17m
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 UK£34m. The last step is to then divide the equity value by the number of shares outstanding. Compared to the current share price of UK£0.4, the company appears about fair value at a 14% 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
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 Creightons 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 8.7%, which is based on a levered beta of 1.123. 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.
SWOT Analysis for Creightons
Strength
Debt is not viewed as a risk.
Weakness
Earnings declined over the past year.
Opportunity
Current share price is below our estimate of fair value.
Lack of analyst coverage makes it difficult to determine CRL's earnings prospects.
Threat
No apparent threats visible for CRL.
Moving On:
Whilst important, the DCF calculation ideally won't be the sole piece of analysis you scrutinize 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. For Creightons, we've compiled three further items you should further research:
Risks: Take risks, for example - Creightons has 4 warning signs (and 1 which is potentially serious) we think you should know about.
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!
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 British stock every day, so if you want to find the intrinsic value of any other stock just search here.
Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) simplywallst.com.
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.
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