Yahoo Finance Estimating The Intrinsic Value Of TEGNA Inc (NYSE:TGNA)
Does the November share price for TEGNA Inc (NYSE:TGNA) reflect it’s really worth? Today, I will calculate the stock’s intrinsic value 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! Anyone interested in learning a bit more about intrinsic value should have a read of the Simply Wall St analysis model. Please also note that this article was written in November 2018 so be sure check out the updated calculation by following the link below.
See our latest analysis for TEGNA
Step by step through the calculation
I use what is known as a 2-stage model, which simply means we have two different periods of varying growth rates for the company’s cash flows. Generally the first stage is higher growth, and the second stage is a more stable growth phase. To start off with we need to estimate the next five years of cash flows. For this I used the consensus of the analysts covering the stock, as you can see below. The sum of these cash flows is then discounted to today’s value.
5-year cash flow estimate
2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | |
Levered FCF ($, Millions) | $373.91 | $499.65 | $390.00 | $337.05 | $291.29 |
Source | Analyst x5 | Analyst x2 | Analyst x1 | Est @ -13.58% | Est @ -13.58% |
Present Value Discounted @ 12.77% | $331.56 | $392.89 | $271.94 | $208.41 | $159.71 |
Present Value of 5-year Cash Flow (PVCF)= US$1.4b
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 the GDP. In this case I have used the 10-year government bond rate (2.9%). In the same way as with the 5-year ‘growth’ period, we discount this to today’s value at a cost of equity of 12.8%.
Terminal Value (TV) = FCF2022 × (1 + g) ÷ (r – g) = US$291m × (1 + 2.9%) ÷ (12.8% – 2.9%) = US$3.1b
Present Value of Terminal Value (PVTV) = TV / (1 + r)5 = US$3.1b ÷ ( 1 + 12.8%)5 = US$1.7b
The total value, or equity value, is then the sum of the present value of the cash flows, which in this case is US$3.0b. The last step is to then 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) then we use the equivalent number. This results in an intrinsic value of $14.11. Compared to the current share price of $12.63, the stock is about right, perhaps slightly undervalued at a 11% discount to what it is available for right now.
Important 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 my inputs, I recommend redoing the calculations yourself and playing with them. Because we are looking at TEGNA 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 12.8%, which is based on a levered beta of 1.393. 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 TGNA, I’ve put together three pertinent factors you should further examine:
Financial Health: Does TGNA 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 TGNA’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 TGNA? Explore our interactive list of high quality stocks to get an idea of what else is out there you may be missing!
PS. The Simply Wall St app conducts a discounted cash flow for every stock on the NYSE every 6 hours. If you want to find the calculation for other stocks just search here.
To help readers see past 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. For errors that warrant correction please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com.
