An Intrinsic Calculation For Tyson Foods Inc (NYSE:TSN) Shows It’s 38.6% Undervalued

In this article:

How far off is Tyson Foods Inc (NYSE:TSN) from its intrinsic value? Using the most recent financial data, I am going to take a look at whether the stock is fairly priced by taking the foreast future cash flows of the company and discounting them back to today’s value. I will be using the Discounted Cash Flows (DCF) model. Don’t get put off by the jargon, the math behind it is actually quite straightforward. Anyone interested in learning a bit more about intrinsic value should have a read of the Simply Wall St analysis model. If you are reading this and its not November 2018 then I highly recommend you check out the latest calculation for Tyson Foods by following the link below.

Check out our latest analysis for Tyson Foods

The calculation

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 the sum of these cash flows to arrive at a present value estimate.

5-year cash flow forecast

2019

2020

2021

2022

2023

Levered FCF ($, Millions)

$1.51k

$2.06k

$2.31k

$2.34k

$2.38k

Source

Analyst x7

Analyst x2

Analyst x1

Est @ 1.55%

Est @ 1.55%

Present Value Discounted @ 8.59%

$1.39k

$1.75k

$1.80k

$1.69k

$1.58k

Present Value of 5-year Cash Flow (PVCF)= US$8.2b

The second stage is also known as Terminal Value, this is the business’s cash flow after the first stage. 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$2.4b × (1 + 2.9%) ÷ (8.6% – 2.9%) = US$43.4b

Present Value of Terminal Value (PVTV) = TV / (1 + r)5 = US$43.4b ÷ ( 1 + 8.6%)5 = US$28.8b

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$37.0b. 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 $101.05. Compared to the current share price of $62.04, the stock is quite good value at a 39% discount to what it is available for right now.

NYSE:TSN Intrinsic Value Export November 7th 18
NYSE:TSN Intrinsic Value Export November 7th 18

Important assumptions

Now the most important inputs to a discounted cash flow are the discount rate, and of course, the actual cash flows. If you don’t agree with my result, have a go at the calculation yourself and play with the assumptions. Because we are looking at Tyson Foods 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 0.800. 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:

Whilst important, DCF calculation shouldn’t be the only metric you look at when researching a company. What is the reason for the share price to differ from the intrinsic value? For TSN, there are three essential aspects you should look at:

  1. Financial Health: Does TSN 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.

  2. Future Earnings: How does TSN’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 High Quality Alternatives: Are there other high quality stocks you could be holding instead of TSN? 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 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 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.

Advertisement