An Intrinsic Calculation For Propel Funeral Partners Limited (ASX:PFP) Suggests It's 36% Undervalued
Simply Wall St
6 min read
In this article we are going to estimate the intrinsic value of Propel Funeral Partners Limited (ASX:PFP) by taking the expected future cash flows and discounting them to their present value. This will be done using the Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) model. Before you think you won't be able to understand it, just read on! It's actually much less complex than you'd imagine.
Companies can be valued in a lot of ways, so we would point out that a DCF is not perfect for every situation. For those who are keen learners of equity analysis, the Simply Wall St analysis model here may be something of interest to you.
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. Where possible we use analyst estimates, but when these aren't available we extrapolate the previous free cash flow (FCF) from the last estimate or 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 need to discount the sum of these future cash flows to arrive at a present value estimate:
10-year free cash flow (FCF) estimate
2021
2022
2023
2024
2025
2026
2027
2028
2029
2030
Levered FCF (A$, Millions)
AU$23.1m
AU$23.5m
AU$23.8m
AU$24.3m
AU$24.7m
AU$25.3m
AU$25.8m
AU$26.3m
AU$26.9m
AU$27.5m
Growth Rate Estimate Source
Analyst x2
Analyst x2
Est @ 1.65%
Est @ 1.83%
Est @ 1.96%
Est @ 2.05%
Est @ 2.11%
Est @ 2.16%
Est @ 2.19%
Est @ 2.21%
Present Value (A$, Millions) Discounted @ 7.7%
AU$21.4
AU$20.2
AU$19.1
AU$18.0
AU$17.1
AU$16.2
AU$15.3
AU$14.5
AU$13.8
AU$13.1
("Est" = FCF growth rate estimated by Simply Wall St) Present Value of 10-year Cash Flow (PVCF) = AU$168m
The second stage is also known as Terminal Value, this is the business's cash flow after 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 5-year average of the 10-year government bond yield (2.3%) 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 7.7%.
Present Value of Terminal Value (PVTV)= TV / (1 + r)10= AU$516m÷ ( 1 + 7.7%)10= AU$245m
The total value, or equity value, is then the sum of the present value of the future cash flows, which in this case is AU$413m. The last step is to then divide the equity value by the number of shares outstanding. Compared to the current share price of AU$2.7, the company appears quite good value at a 36% discount to where the stock price trades currently. Remember though, that this is just an approximate valuation, and like any complex formula - garbage in, garbage out.
ASX:PFP Discounted Cash Flow August 11th 2020
Important 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. Part of investing is coming up with your own evaluation of a company's future performance, so try the calculation yourself and check your own assumptions. 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 Propel Funeral Partners 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 7.7%, which is based on a levered beta of 0.907. 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.
Moving On:
Whilst important, the DCF calculation is only one of many factors that you need to assess for 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. What is the reason for the share price sitting below the intrinsic value? For Propel Funeral Partners, we've compiled three fundamental items you should further examine:
Future Earnings: How does PFP'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 Solid Businesses: Low debt, high returns on equity and good past performance are fundamental to a strong business. Why not explore our interactive list of stocks with solid business fundamentals to see if there are other companies you may not have considered!
PS. Simply Wall St updates its DCF calculation for every Australian stock every day, so if you want to find the intrinsic value of any other stock just search here.
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. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.
