Equity Valuation Flashcards
Intrinsic value
How it occurs
Possible sources of mispricing (Formula)
- Value of the asset given a hypothetically complete understanding of the asset’s investment characteristics
- A mispricing occurs where the market price differs from the intrinsic value
- Active investment managers aim to generate a positive excess risk-adjusted return i.e. a positive Alpha
- Two possible sources of mispricing:
- Genuine mispricing
- Our estimate compared to I. Value = error in analysts estimate
Going-concern value / Liquidation value
- Going-concern: Valuation under the assumption that the company will continue its business activities in the foreseeable future
- Liquidation: Value if the company was dissolved and its assets sold individually
The difference between going concern value and liquidation value consists of intangible assets and goodwill
Fair market value / Investment value
- Fair market value: The price at which an asset would change hands between a willing buyer and a willing seller
- Investment value: The value to a specific buyer taking into account potential synergies and based on investor’s requirements and expectations (That has a potetnial much bigger value to me)
Applications of equity valuation
- Stock selection
- Inferring market expectations
- Corporate event analysis such as mergers, divestitures etc.
- Fairness opinions
- Business strategy analysis
- Shareholder communication
- Private equity valuation
- Share based payment
The valuation process steps
-
Understand the business
- Industry analysis (5 forces etc.)
- Competitive position (5 forces etc.)
- Information from regulatory filings, press releases etc.
- Analysis of financial reports (Ratios etc)
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Forecast performance
- Economic forecast (top-down vs. bottom-up)
- Forecast sales, earnings, cash flow (quantitative)
- Financial statement analysis (including footnotes and adjustments)
- Qualitative factors (management, quality of earnings, disclosures)
- Select valuation model
- Estimate intrinsic value
- Make investment recommendation
Quality of earnings analysis
Covered in FRA
Valuation models
- Absolute valuation models: Specifies intrinsic value
- Present value models:
- Dividend discount model
- Discounted cash flow models
- Residual income models
- Asset-based models
- Relative valuation models: Method of comparables
- Multiples: assume that comparison asset is fairly valued
- Price-to-earnings
- Price-to-sales
- Price-to-book value
- Price-to-cash flow
Valuation / Model selection criteria
- Consistent with economics of the business
- Availability and quality of data
- Purpose of the valuation
Other issues:
- Control premiums: Ability to influence management and operations adds value to majority ownership
- Marketability discounts: Non-publicly traded companies are more difficult to value and ultimately sell
- Liquidity discounts: Thinly traded securities are more difficult to value and may be more risky than issues with greater liquidity
Realized vs. Expected Holding period return
- The selling price PH and the dividend DH are only known at the end of the holding period i.e. a realized holding period return
- If the future sale price and dividend are estimated, this would give an expected holding period return
The investor’s expected rate of return has two components
- The required return
- A return from the price converging to its intrinsic value
Required / Expected return
Definition
3 apporaches
The minimum level of expected return that an investor requires given the asset’s riskiness
The required / expected return on equity = Three popular approaches:
- CAPM
- Multifactor models (Fama-French)
- Build-up method
Expected (ex ante) / Realized Alpha
Internal rate of return
The discount rate that equates the present value of the asset’s expected future cash flows to the asset’s price
The equity risk premium (ERP)
RM - Rf
The equity risk premium is the incremental return that investors require for holding equities rather than a risk-free asset
Two broad approaches:
- Historical estimates
- Forward looking estimates
ERP: Historical estimates
Historical average of difference between returns from a broad-based equity index and the risk-free (Government Bond) return. Two issues:
-
Arithmetic or Geometric mean:
- Arithmetic mean for single period models e.g. CAPM
- Geometric mean is preferred as typically looking at multi-period context
- Risk-free rate: Long-term Government Bond yield preferred to short term T-Bill yield as looking at a multi-period context
Adjusted Historical estimate: Poorly performing companies tend to get removed from major indices, thus overestimating the equity premium
ERP: Forward looking estimates (ex-ante estimates)
Three common ways:
-
Gordon Growth Model Equity Risk Premium
= forecasted dividend yield
+ consensus long-term earnings growth rate
– current long-term government bond yield
= > GG: [r = D1 / P0 + g] - current long-term government bond yield
-
Macroeconomic models: Multiple regression approach, e.g. Ibbotson and Chen model uses 4 variables to develop the equity risk premium estimate:
- Expected inflation
- Expected growth rate in real earnings per share (GDP growth)
- Expected growth rate in the P/E ratio
- Expected income component (e.g. div yield of S&P500)
=> Compound 1,2,3 (x* x* x) and add 4. => RM - Rf = ERP
- Survey estimates
CAPM
Calculates required return for an investment
Estimating a Beta for a public company
- Regression analysis is regressing stock return against the market
- Issues to consider:
- Choice of index
- Length of data period and frequency of observations
- Adjusting a historic (raw) Beta to make it forward looking
- Commonly adjusted using the Blume method which is an autoregressive model = > Blume method assumes Betas mean revert to one
- Issues to consider:
Adjusted Beta: Blume method
Adjusting a historic (raw) Beta to make it forward looking
Commonly adjusted using the Blume method which is an autoregressive model
Blume method assumes Betas mean revert to one (1* 1/3 = 1/3)
Estimating the Beta for non-public company or thinly traded company
Unlever Beta
Relever Beta
“with debt of 20% in the capital structure”
=> Debt: 20 ; Equity 80 ; Total 100 => D/E = 20/80 = 0.25
Fama-French: Multifactor models
Fundamental Multifactor: Calculating the required return on equity
Pastor-Stambaugh model
Extensions to Fama-French:
LIQ is the excess return from investing proceeds from shorting high liquidity stocks into a low liquidity stock portfolio, i.e. earning a liquidity premium
Macroeconomic / Statistical factor models
The required return on equity:
-
Macroeconomic factor models
- Factors are economic variables that affect the expected future cash flows and/or the discount rate e.g. five-factor BIRR Model uses the following factors:
- Confidence risk
- Time horizon risk
- Inflation risk
- Business cycle risk
- Market timing risk
- Factors are economic variables that affect the expected future cash flows and/or the discount rate e.g. five-factor BIRR Model uses the following factors:
-
Statistical factor models
- Applied to historical returns to determine stock portfolios (acting as factors) that explain returns
Build-Up Method for required return on equity
For private companies may we would also include a size risk premium
Required return on equity: Bond Yield Plus Risk Premium (BYPRP) method
BYPRP cost of equity = YTM on the company’s long term debt + Risk premium
- For companies with publicly traded debt, this can be a quick approximation
- For overseas markets, a country premium to the developed market equity premium can be added
Weighted average cost of capital (WACC)
- Assumes firm has established optimal (target) capital structure
- Use market values, not book values (Equity & Debt)
Discount rate selection
Key is to be consistent:
- Nominal cash flows need nominal discount rate
- Real cash flows need real discount rate
REAL EXLUDES INFLATION
Industry and Company Analysis Approaches:
Top-down
Bottom-up
Hybrid
-
Top-down approach – start with a forecast for the economy and then narrow the forecasts to sector, industry and then finally stock. Two approaches:
- Growth relative to GDP. Forecast GDP growth and from here estimate how this may effect a company’s sales
- Market growth and market share. Forecast how the market will grow and then consider how the company’s market share will change
-
Bottom-up approach – starts with the individual company and makes forecasts. From here it is possible to aggregate up forecasts to provide industry, sector and even economy-wide forecasts. Examples include:
- Time series regression
- Return on capital
- Capacity based forecasts (e.g. ‘like for like’ sales used in retailing)
- Hybrid approach – combines elements of both
Income statement (IS) modelling
- Analysis of costs is just as important as revenue but unfortunately disclosure regarding costs is often less detailed
- Need to understand breakdown of costs i.e. variable vs. fixed. Variable costs will tend to move as a percentage of revenue growth whereas fixed costs may grow at their own rate
-
Economies of scale? Gross and operating margins tend to be positively correlated with sales growth when economies of scale are present. Contributing factors:
- Greater bargaining power with suppliers
- Lower costs of capital
- Lower per unit advertising expenses
IS: Cost of goods sold (COGS)
Direct costs of producing the goods sold by a company. This amount includes the cost of the materials and labor directly used to create the good. It excludes indirect expenses, such as distribution costs and sales force costs.
- Typically the biggest category of cost so even a small error can have a large impact on forecasted profits
- Historical data on COGS and in particular as a percentage of sales, is often a good starting point when considering a forecast number (suffer from a time lag)
- Must also consider the impact of hedging − Assume COGS doubles and a company can pass through 100% of this rise to its customers – what happens to the profit margin? − Lets assume sales are 100 and COGS are 30 giving us a gross profit margin of 70% (70/100). Now lets increase COGS to 60 and sales to 130. Our gross margin has now fallen to 53.8% (70/130). − To prevent this negative impact on profitability many companies hedge against input prices rises
- Competitor analysis can also be useful
IS: Selling, general and administrative expenses (SG&A)
Direct and indirect selling expenses and all general and administrative expenses (G&A) of a company. SG&A, also known as SGA, includes all the costs not directly tied to making a product or performing a service.
- Unlike COGS, SG&A do not have such a direct relationship with sales
- Using historical data and also benchmarking against competitors will help with forecasting SG&A
IS: Finance Expenses
- Financial expenses include interest expense generated by debt
- Driven by the level of debt and interest rates
- Disclosure about the debt maturity profile will help forecast to what extent new debt will be required
IS: Corporate income tax
- Statutory tax rate – the tax rate applied to the company’s domestic tax base
- Effective tax rate – derived from income statement
- Cash tax rate – actual amount of tax paid relative to pre-tax income • The main focus when income statement modelling is effective and cash tax rates but applied to normalized income
Balance sheet modelling
- Some items will flow directly from the income statement (retained earnings) whereas other lines such as accounts receivables and inventory will be closely linked to the income statement projections
- A common way to model working capital is to use working capital ratios. For example, we can forecast inventory by applying an inventory turnover rate for forecasted COGS.
- Working capital projections can also be modified by both top-down and bottom-up considerations
- Long-term assets such as PP&E are less directly tied to the income statement. Maintenance capital expenditure will be similar to but higher than depreciation due to the presence of inflation in the economy. Growth capital expenditure will require a judgement by the analyst regarding likely expansion plans
- Lastly we need to forecast the capital structure. Historical analysis and management strategy is a good starting place.
Return on invested capital (ROIC)
- gives a sense of how well a company is using its capital to generate profits
- Where invested capital is usually defined as operating assets less operating liabilitie (NonCurrent Assets + Cash + WC (Current Asstes without Cash - Current Liab without financing …) Can either take an opening figure or average for year
- A better measure of performance than ROE since it is unaffected by the degree of financial leverage
- A similar measure is return on capital employed (ROCE) which is essentially ROIC before tax. Useful when comparing difference companies in different tax jurisdictions.
Return on capital employed (ROCE)
- Dermines a company’s profitability and the efficiency the capital is applied. A higher ROCE implies a more economical use of capital
- A similar measure is return on capital employed (ROCE) which is essentially ROIC before tax. Useful when comparing difference companies in different tax jurisdictions.
Porter’s 5 Forces: Impact of competitive forces on prices and costs
Inflation and deflation
- Changing price levels can significantly affect the accuracy of forecasts
- The impact from inflation on future company performance will vary from company to company due to difference in competitive advantage and industry structure
- If the product’s demand is relatively price inelastic then its revenues will benefit from inflation
- Cost inflation will depend upon the scope for substituting alternative inputs
- Analysing international companies means adjusting for the geographic mix of its operations when incorporating inflation predictions
- Foreign exchange rate movements can also be a source of price changes
Industry and Company Analysis: Technological developments
- Technological developments have the capacity to significantly change the economics of an industry
- Assumptions need to be made about the impact of such developments − Will this just cannibalize existing products or will it create a new segment in the market?
- Important to analyse such developments using scenario and sensitivity analysis
Long-term forecasting
- The choice of forecast time horizon depends upon:
- Investment strategy for which the stock is being considered
- Cyclicality of the industry
- Horizon needs to be long enough to allow the company to reach a level of sales and profitability that is consistent with mid-cycle i.e. normalized earnings
- Analyst’s own preferences
- Company specific factors
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Terminal value
- Take care when using historical valuation guidelines. Past multiples may not always be consistent with future multiples
- Long term growth rate is always difficult to estimate
- Regulations and technological change can dramatically impact terminal values.
Valuation Models − Overview
Dividends
FCF
Residual Income