Estimating The Intrinsic Value Of Freeport-McMoRan Inc (FCX)
I am going to run you through how I calculated the intrinsic value of Freeport-McMoRan Inc (NYSE:FCX) using the discounted cash flow (DCF) method. If you want to learn more about this method, the basis for my calculations can be found in detail in the Simply Wall St analysis model. Also note that this article was written in November 2017 so be sure check the latest calculation for Freeport-McMoRan here.
What’s the value?
I use what is known as the 2-stage 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. To begin, I pulled together the analyst consensus estimates of FCX’s levered free cash flow (FCF) over the next five years and discounted these values at the cost of equity of 14.6%. This resulted in a present value of 5-year cash flow of $8,829M. Want to know how I calculated this value? Take a look at our detailed analysis here.
The graph above shows how FCX’s top and bottom lines are expected to move going forward, which should give you an idea of FCX’s outlook. Secondly, I determine the terminal value, which is the business’s cash flow after the first stage. It’s appropriate to use the 10-year government bond rate of 2.8% as the stable growth rate, which is rightly below GDP growth, but more towards the conservative side. After discounting the terminal value back five years, the present value becomes $14,323M.
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 $23,151M. The last step is to then divide the equity value by the number of shares outstanding. This results in an intrinsic value of $15.99, which, compared to the current share price of $14.72, we see that Freeport-McMoRan is about right, perhaps slightly undervalued at a 7.96% discount to what it is available for right now.
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 FCX, there are three key aspects you should look at:
PS. Simply Wall St does a DCF calculation for every US stock every 6 hours, so if you want to find the intrinsic value of any other stock 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.
