Estimating The Fair Value Of S4 Capital plc (LON:SFOR)
In this article we are going to estimate the intrinsic value of S4 Capital plc (LON:SFOR) by taking the foreast future cash flows of the company and discounting them back to today's value. I will use the Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) model. Don't get put off by the jargon, the math behind it is actually quite straightforward.
We generally believe that a company's value is the present value of all of the cash it will generate in the future. However, a DCF is just one valuation metric among many, and it is not without flaws. If you want to learn more about discounted cash flow, the rationale behind this calculation can be read in detail in the Simply Wall St analysis model.
See our latest analysis for S4 Capital
Step by step through the calculation
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.
A DCF is all about the idea that a dollar in the future is less valuable than a dollar today, so we discount the value of these future cash flows to their estimated value in today's dollars:
10-year free cash flow (FCF) estimate
2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | 2026 | 2027 | 2028 | 2029 | |
Levered FCF (£, Millions) | UK£25.0m | UK£25.3m | UK£25.6m | UK£25.9m | UK£26.1m | UK£26.3m | UK£26.4m | UK£26.6m | UK£26.8m | UK£26.9m |
Growth Rate Estimate Source | Est @ 1.72% | Est @ 1.36% | Est @ 1.11% | Est @ 0.94% | Est @ 0.81% | Est @ 0.73% | Est @ 0.67% | Est @ 0.63% | Est @ 0.6% | Est @ 0.58% |
Present Value (£, Millions) Discounted @ 5.4% | UK£23.7 | UK£22.8 | UK£21.9 | UK£21.0 | UK£20.1 | UK£19.2 | UK£18.3 | UK£17.5 | UK£16.7 | UK£15.9 |
("Est" = FCF growth rate estimated by Simply Wall St)
Present Value of 10-year Cash Flow (PVCF) = UK£196m
After calculating the present value of future cash flows in the intial 10-year period, we need to calculate the Terminal Value, which accounts for all future cash flows beyond the first stage. 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 10-year government bond rate (0.5%) 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 5.4%.
Terminal Value (TV)= FCF2029 × (1 + g) ÷ (r – g) = UK£27m× (1 + 0.5%) ÷ 5.4%– 0.5%) = UK£557m
Present Value of Terminal Value (PVTV)= TV / (1 + r)10= UK£557m÷ ( 1 + 5.4%)10= UK£330m
The total value, or equity value, is then the sum of the present value of the future cash flows, which in this case is UK£526m. To get the intrinsic value per share, we divide this by the total number of shares outstanding. Relative to the current share price of UK£1.3, the company appears around fair value at the time of writing. Remember though, that this is just an approximate valuation, and like any complex formula - garbage in, garbage out.
The assumptions
We would point out that 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 S4 Capital 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 5.4%, which is based on a levered beta of 0.800. 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, DCF calculation shouldn’t be the only metric you look at when researching 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 S4 Capital, There are three fundamental aspects you should further examine:
Risks: For example, we've discovered 4 warning signs for S4 Capital that you should be aware of before investing here.
Future Earnings: How does SFOR'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: 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!
PS. Simply Wall St updates its DCF calculation for every GB stock every day, so if you want to find the intrinsic value of any other stock just search here.
If you spot an error that warrants correction, please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com. 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. Simply Wall St has no position in the stocks mentioned.
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