Is There An Opportunity With Lear Corporation’s (NYSE:LEA) 33.01% Undervaluation?
How far off is Lear Corporation (NYSE:LEA) 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 estimating the company’s future cash flows and discounting them to their present value. This is done 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 August 2018 so be sure check out the updated calculation by following the link below.
View our latest analysis for Lear
Is LEA 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. To start off with we need to estimate the next five years of cash flows. 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 estimate
2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | |
Levered FCF ($, Millions) | $1.10k | $1.17k | $1.23k | $1.30k | $1.37k |
Source | Analyst x4 | Analyst x5 | Est @ 5.37% | Est @ 5.37% | Est @ 5.37% |
Present Value Discounted @ 10.23% | $997.61 | $962.68 | $920.23 | $879.66 | $840.88 |
Present Value of 5-year Cash Flow (PVCF)= US$4.60b
After calculating the present value of future cash flows in the intial 5-year period we need to calculate the Terminal Value, which accounts for all the future cash flows beyond the first stage. For a number of reasons a very conservative growth rate is used that cannot exceed that of the GDP. In this case I have used the 10-year government bond rate (2.9%). In the same way as with the 5-year ‘growth’ period, we discount this to today’s value at a cost of equity of 10.2%.
Terminal Value (TV) = FCF2022 × (1 + g) ÷ (r – g) = US$1.37b × (1 + 2.9%) ÷ (10.2% – 2.9%) = US$19.34b
Present Value of Terminal Value (PVTV) = TV / (1 + r)5 = US$19.34b ÷ ( 1 + 10.2%)5 = US$11.88b
The total value, or equity value, is then the sum of the present value of the cash flows, which in this case is US$16.49b. 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 $251.64. Relative to the current share price of $168.57, the stock is quite undervalued at a 33.0% discount to what it is available for right now.
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 Lear 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 10.2%, which is based on a levered beta of 1.033. 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 LEA, there are three pertinent aspects you should look at:
Financial Health: Does LEA 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 LEA’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 LEA? 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 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.
