How far off is Adient plc (NYSE:ADNT) from its intrinsic value? Using the most recent financial data, we’ll take a look at whether the stock is fairly priced by taking the forecast future cash flows of the company and discounting them back to today’s value. One way to achieve this is by employing the Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) model. Believe it or not, it’s not too difficult to follow, as you’ll see from our example!
We would caution that there are many ways of valuing a company and, like the DCF, each technique has advantages and disadvantages in certain scenarios. For those who are keen learners of equity analysis, the Simply Wall St analysis model here may be something of interest to you.
View our latest analysis for Adient
The Model
We’re 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 a stable growth rate. 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.
Generally we assume that a dollar today is more valuable than a dollar in the future, 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
2023 |
2024 |
2025 |
2026 |
2027 |
2028 |
2029 |
2030 |
2031 |
2032 |
|
Levered FCF ($, Millions) |
US$161.3m |
US$370.8m |
US$541.7m |
US$612.8m |
US$665.1m |
US$708.7m |
US$745.5m |
US$777.0m |
US$804.6m |
US$829.4m |
Growth Rate Estimate Source |
Analyst x3 |
Analyst x2 |
Analyst x1 |
Analyst x1 |
Est @ 8.53% |
Est @ 6.57% |
Est @ 5.19% |
Est @ 4.23% |
Est @ 3.55% |
Est @ 3.08% |
Present Value ($, Millions) Discounted @ 13% |
US$143 |
US$292 |
US$378 |
US$380 |
US$366 |
US$346 |
US$323 |
US$299 |
US$274 |
US$251 |
(“Est” = FCF growth rate estimated by Simply Wall St)
Present Value of 10-year Cash Flow (PVCF) = US$3.1b
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 (2.0%) 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 13%.
Terminal Value (TV)= FCF2032 × (1 + g) ÷ (r – g) = US$829m× (1 + 2.0%) ÷ (13%– 2.0%) = US$7.9b
Present Value of Terminal Value (PVTV)= TV / (1 + r)10= US$7.9b÷ ( 1 + 13%)10= US$2.4b
The total value is the sum of cash flows for the next ten years plus the discounted terminal value, which results in the Total Equity Value, which in this case is US$5.4b. The last step is to then divide the equity value by the number of shares outstanding. Relative to the current share price of US$29.1, the company appears quite good value at a 49% 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.
The 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. You don’t have to agree with these inputs, I recommend redoing the calculations yourself and playing with them. 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 Adient 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 13%, which is based on a levered beta of 1.928. 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.
Looking Ahead:
Whilst important, the DCF calculation ideally won’t be the sole piece of analysis you scrutinize for a company. The DCF model is not a perfect stock valuation tool. Instead the best use for a DCF model is to test certain assumptions and theories to see if they would lead to the company being undervalued or 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. Can we work out why the company is trading at a discount to intrinsic value? For Adient, there are three relevant elements you should further research:
-
Risks: Be aware that Adient is showing 2 warning signs in our investment analysis , you should know about…
-
Future Earnings: How does ADNT’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: Do you like a good all-rounder? 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 updates its DCF calculation for every American stock every day, so if you want to find the intrinsic value of any other stock just search here.
Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) simplywallst.com.
This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. 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.
Join A Paid User Research Session
You’ll receive a US$30 Amazon Gift card for 1 hour of your time while helping us build better investing tools for the individual investors like yourself. Sign up here