Walking Through and Explaining a DCF; Calculating Free Cash Flow (FCF) - Breaking into Wall Street

Walk me through a DCF.

"A DCF values a company based on the Present Value of its Cash Flows and the Present Value of its Terminal Value. First, you project a company's financials using assumptions for revenue growth, margins, and the Change in Operating Assets and Liabilities; then you calculate Free Cash Flow for each year, which you discount and sum up to get to the Net Present Value. The Discount Rate is usually the Weighted Average Cost of Capital. Once you have the present value of the Free Cash Flows, you determine the company's Terminal Value, using either the Multiples Method or the Gordon Growth Method, and then you discount that back to its Net Present Value using the Discount Rate. Finally, you add the two together to determine the company's Enterprise Value."

What's the point of that "Changes in Operating Assets and Liabilities" section? What does it mean?

All it means is that if Assets are increasing by more than Liabilities, the company is spending cash and therefore reducing its cash flow, whereas if Liabilities are increasing by more than Assets, the company is increasing its cash flow. For example, if it places a huge order of Inventory, sells products, and records revenue, but hasn't receive the cash from customers yet, Inventory and Accounts Receivable both go up and represent uses of cash. Maybe some of its Liabilities, such as Accounts Payable and Deferred Revenue, also increase... but think about what happens: if the Assets increase by, say, $100, and the Liabilities only increase by $50, it's a net cash flow reduction of $50. So that is what this section is for - we need to take into account the cash changes from these operationally-linked Balance Sheet items.

Let's say we do this and find that the Implied per Share Value is $10.00. The company's current share price is $5.00. What does this mean?

By itself, this does not mean much - you have to look at a range of outputs from a DCF rather than just a single number. So you would see what the Implied per Share Value is under different assumptions for the Discount Rate, revenue growth, margins, and so on. If you consistently find that it's greater than the company's current share price, then the analysis might tell you that the company is undervalued; it might be overvalued if it's consistently less than the current share price across all ranges.

Walk me through how you get from Revenue to Free Cash Flow in the projections.

First, confirm that they are asking for Unlevered Free Cash Flow (Free Cash Flow to Firm). If so: Subtract COGS and Operating Expenses from Revenue to get to Operating Income (EBIT) - or just use the EBIT margin you've assumed. Then, multiply by (1 - Tax Rate), add back Depreciation, Amortization, and other non-cash charges, and factor in the Change in Operating Assets and Liabilities. If Assets increase by more than Liabilities, this is a negative; otherwise it's positive. Finally, subtract Capital Expenditures to calculate Unlevered Free Cash Flow. Levered Free Cash Flow (FCFE) is similar, but you must also subtract the Net Interest Expense before multiplying by (1 - Tax Rate), and you must also subtract Mandatory Debt Repayments at the end.

Why do you add back non-cash charges when calculating Free Cash Flow?

For the same reason you add them back on the Cash Flow Statement: you want to reflect the fact that they save the company on taxes, but that the company does not actually pay the expense in cash.

What do you usually use for the Discount Rate?

In a Unlevered DCF analysis, you use WACC (Weighted Average Cost of Capital), which reflects the "Cost" of Equity, Debt, and Preferred Stock. In a Levered DCF analysis, you use Cost of Equity instead.

Let's say that you use Levered Free Cash Flow rather than Unlevered Free Cash Flow in your DCF - what changes?

Levered Free Cash Flow gives you Equity Value rather than Enterprise Value, since the cash flow is only available to Equity Investors (Debt investors have already been "paid" with the interest payments and principal repayments).

Let's talk more about how you calculate Free Cash Flow. Is it always correct to leave out most of the Cash Flow from Investing section and all of the Cash Flow from Financing section?

Most of the time, yes, because all items other than CapEx are generally non- recurring, or at least do not recur in a predictable way. If you have advance knowledge that a company is going to sell or buy a certain amount of securities, issue a certain amount of stock, or repurchase a certain number of shares every year, then sure, you can factor those in. But it's extremely rare to do that.

What about alternate ways to calculate Levered Free Cash Flow?

Net Income + Non-Cash Charges - Changes in Operating Assets and Liabilities - CapEx - Mandatory Debt Repayments (EBIT - Net Interest Expense) * (1 - Tax Rate) + Non-Cash Charges - Changes in Operating Assets and Liabilities - CapEx - Mandatory Debt Repayments • Cash Flow from Operations - CapEx - Mandatory Debt Repayments

Let's say that you use Unlevered Free Cash Flow in a DCF to calculate Enterprise Value. Then, you work backwards and use the company's Cash, Debt, and so on to calculate its implied Equity Value. Then you run the analysis using Levered Free Cash Flow instead and calculate Equity Value at the end. Will the implied Equity Value from both these analyses by the same?

No, most likely it will not be the same. In theory, you could pick equivalent assumptions and set up the analysis such that you calculate the same Equity Value at the end. In practice, it's difficult to pick "equivalent" assumptions, so these two methods will rarely, if ever, produce the same value. Think about it like this: when you use Unlevered FCF and move from Enterprise Value to Equity Value, you're always using the same numbers for Cash, Debt, etc. But in a Levered FCF analysis, the terms of the Debt will impact Free Cash Flow - so simply by assuming a different interest rate or repayment schedule, you'll alter the Equity Value. That's why it's so difficult to make "equivalent assumptions."

What happens in the DCF if Free Cash Flow is negative? What if EBIT is negative?

Nothing "happens" because you can still run the analysis as-is. The company's value will certainly decrease if one or both of these turn negative, because the present value of Free Cash Flow will decrease as a result. The analysis is not necessarily invalid even if cash flow is negative - if it turns positive after a point, it could still work. If the company never turns cash flow-positive, then you may want to skip the DCF because it will always produce negative values.

If I'm working with a public company in a DCF, how do I move from Enterprise Value to its Implied per Share Value?

Once you get to Enterprise Value, ADD Cash and then SUBTRACT Debt, Preferred Stock, and Noncontrolling Interests (and any other debt-like items) to get to Equity Value. Then you divide by the company's share count (factoring in all dilutive securities) to determine the implied per-share price.

Why do you use 5 or 10 years for the "near future" DCF projections?

That's about as far as you can reasonably predict for most companies. Less than 5 years would be too short to be useful, and more than 10 years is too difficult to project for most companies.

What's the basic concept behind a Discounted Cash Flow analysis?

The concept is that you value a company based on the present value of its Free Cash Flows far into the future. You divide the future into a "near future" period of 5-10 years and then calculate, project, discount, and add up those Free Cash Flows; and then there's also a "far future" period for everything beyond that, which you can't estimate as precisely, but which you can approximate using different approaches. You need to discount everything back to its present value because money today is worth more than money tomorrow.

What's the point of Free Cash Flow, anyway? What are you trying to do?

The idea is that you're replicating the Cash Flow Statement, but only including recurring, predictable items. And in the case of Unlevered Free Cash Flow, you also exclude the impact of Debt entirely. That's why everything in Cash Flow from Investing except for CapEx is excluded, and why the entire Cash Flow from Financing section is excluded (the only exception being Mandatory Debt Repayments for Levered FCF).

An alternative to the DCF is the Dividend Discount Model (DDM). How is it different in the general case (i.e. for a normal company, not a commercial bank or insurance firm?)

The setup is similar: you still project revenue and expenses over a 5-10 year period, and you still calculate Terminal Value. The difference is that you do not calculate Free Cash Flow - instead, you stop at Net Income and assume that Dividends Issued are a percentage of Net Income, and then you discount those Dividends back to their present value using the Cost of Equity. Then, you add those up and add them to the present value of the Terminal Value, which you might base on a P / E multiple instead. Finally, a Dividend Discount Model gets you the company's Equity Value rather than its Enterprise Value since you're using metrics that include interest income and expense.

What's an alternate method for calculating Unlevered Free Cash Flow (Free Cash Flow to Firm)?

There are many "alternate methods" - here are a few common ones: -EBIT * (1 - Tax Rate) + Non-Cash Charges - Changes in Operating Assets and Liabilities - CapEx -Cash Flow from Operations + Tax-Adjusted Net Interest Expense - CapEx -Net Income + Tax-Adjusted Net Interest Expense + Non-Cash Charges - Changes in Operating Assets and Liabilities - CapEx The difference with these is that the tax numbers will be slightly different as a result of when you exclude the interest.

As an approximation, do you think it's OK to use EBITDA - Changes in Operating Assets and Liabilities - CapEx to approximate Unlevered Free Cash Flow?

This is inaccurate because it excludes taxes completely. It would be better to use EBITDA - Taxes - Changes in Operating Assets and Liabilities - CapEx. If you need a very quick approximation, yes, this formula can work and it will get you closer than EBITDA by itself. But taxes are significant and should not be overlooked.

Is there a valid reason why we might sometimes project 10 years or more anyway?

You might sometimes do this if it's a cyclical industry, such as chemicals, because it may be important to show the entire cycle from low to high.

If you use Levered Free Cash Flow, what should you use as the Discount Rate?

You would use Cost of Equity rather than WACC since we're ignoring Debt and Preferred Stock and only care about the Equity Value for Levered FCF.