Yahoo Finance A Look At The Fair Value Of Baxter International Inc (NYSE:BAX)
I am going to run you through how I calculated the intrinsic value of Baxter International Inc (NYSE:BAX) by taking the expected future cash flows and discounting them to today’s value. I will be using 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. Please also note that this article was written in June 2018 so be sure check out the updated calculation by following the link below. Check out our latest analysis for Baxter International
Is BAX fairly valued?
I’m using the 2-stage growth model, which simply means we take in account two stages of company’s growth. In the initial period the company may have a higher growth rate and the second stage is usually assumed to have perpetual stable growth rate. In the first stage we need to estimate the cash flows to the business over the next five years. For this I used the consensus of the analysts covering the stock, as you can see below. I then discount this to its value today and sum up the total to get the present value of these cash flows.
5-year cash flow estimate
2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | |
Levered FCF ($, Millions) | $1.54k | $1.82k | $2.18k | $2.40k | $2.62k |
Source | Analyst x5 | Analyst x5 | Analyst x4 | Analyst x1 | Analyst x1 |
Present Value Discounted @ 8.64% | $1.42k | $1.54k | $1.70k | $1.72k | $1.73k |
Present Value of 5-year Cash Flow (PVCF)= US$8.11b
We now need to calculate the Terminal Value, which accounts for all the future cash flows after the five years. 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 8.6%.
Terminal Value (TV) = FCF2022 × (1 + g) ÷ (r – g) = US$2.62b × (1 + 2.9%) ÷ (8.6% – 2.9%) = US$47.29b
Present Value of Terminal Value (PVTV) = TV / (1 + r)5 = US$47.29b ÷ ( 1 + 8.6%)5 = US$31.25b
The total value is the sum of cash flows for the next five years and the discounted terminal value, which results in the Total Equity Value, which in this case is US$39.36b. 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 $73.51. Compared to the current share price of $74.17, the stock is fair value, maybe slightly overvalued and not available at a discount at this time.
The 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 my inputs, I recommend redoing the calculations yourself and playing with them. Because we are looking at Baxter International 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 8.6%, which is based on a levered beta of 0.807. 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:
Although the valuation of a company is important, it shouldn’t be the only metric you look at when researching a company.
For BAX, I’ve put together three essential factors you should further examine:
Financial Health: Does BAX 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 BAX’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 BAX? 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 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.
