An Intrinsic Calculation For EBOS Group Limited (NZSE:EBO) Suggests It's 21% Undervalued

Does the August share price for EBOS Group Limited (NZSE:EBO) reflect what it's really worth? Today, we will estimate the stock's intrinsic value by taking the expected future cash flows and discounting them to their present value. We will take advantage of the Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) model for this purpose. Before you think you won't be able to understand it, just read on! It's actually much less complex than you'd imagine.

Remember though, that there are many ways to estimate a company's value, and a DCF is just one method. If you still have some burning questions about this type of valuation, take a look at the Simply Wall St analysis model.

See our latest analysis for EBOS Group

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 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, and so the sum of these future cash flows is then discounted to today's value:

10-year free cash flow (FCF) forecast

	2021	2022	2023	2024	2025	2026	2027	2028	2029	2030
Levered FCF (A$, Millions)	AU$179.0m	AU$196.0m	AU$209.0m	AU$220.3m	AU$230.4m	AU$239.5m	AU$248.1m	AU$256.2m	AU$264.1m	AU$271.8m
Growth Rate Estimate Source	Analyst x1	Analyst x1	Est @ 6.62%	Est @ 5.42%	Est @ 4.57%	Est @ 3.98%	Est @ 3.57%	Est @ 3.28%	Est @ 3.07%	Est @ 2.93%
Present Value (A$, Millions) Discounted @ 7.6%	AU$166	AU$169	AU$168	AU$164	AU$160	AU$154	AU$148	AU$143	AU$137	AU$131

("Est" = FCF growth rate estimated by Simply Wall St)
Present Value of 10-year Cash Flow (PVCF) = AU$1.5b

We now need to calculate the Terminal Value, which accounts for all the future cash flows after this ten year period. 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 (2.6%) 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 7.6%.

Terminal Value (TV)= FCF₂₀₃₀ × (1 + g) ÷ (r – g) = AU$272m× (1 + 2.6%) ÷ (7.6%– 2.6%) = AU$5.6b

Present Value of Terminal Value (PVTV)= TV / (1 + r)¹⁰= AU$5.6b÷ ( 1 + 7.6%)¹⁰= AU$2.7b

The total value, or equity value, is then the sum of the present value of the future cash flows, which in this case is AU$4.2b. To get the intrinsic value per share, we divide this by the total number of shares outstanding. Relative to the current share price of NZ$22.4, the company appears a touch undervalued at a 21% 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.

dcf

Important assumptions

Now the most important inputs to a discounted cash flow are the discount rate, and of course, the actual 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 EBOS Group 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 7.6%, which is based on a levered beta of 0.833. 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.

Next Steps:

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. Preferably you'd apply different cases and assumptions and see how they would impact the company's valuation. For example, changes in the company's cost of equity or the risk free rate can significantly impact the valuation. Why is the intrinsic value higher than the current share price? For EBOS Group, we've compiled three relevant items you should look at:

1. Risks: As an example, we've found 1 warning sign for EBOS Group that you need to consider before investing here.

2. Future Earnings: How does EBO'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. The Simply Wall St app conducts a discounted cash flow valuation for every stock on the NZSE every day. If you want to find the calculation for other stocks just search here.

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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