Is Ashtead Technology Holdings Plc (LON:AT.) Trading At A 33% Discount? (2024)

Key Insights

• Ashtead Technology Holdings' estimated fair value is UK£12.03 based on 2 Stage Free Cash Flow to Equity

• Ashtead Technology Holdings is estimated to be 33% undervalued based on current share price of UK£8.04

• Our fair value estimate is 42% higher than Ashtead Technology Holdings' analyst price target of UK£8.45

Does the August share price for Ashtead Technology Holdings Plc (LON:AT.) reflect what it's really worth? Today, we will estimate the stock's intrinsic value by estimating the company's future cash flows and discounting them to their present value. We will take advantage of the Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) model for this purpose. Before you think you won't be able to understand it, just read on! It's actually much less complex than you'd imagine.

We generally believe that a company's value is the present value of all of the cash it will generate in the future. However, a DCF is just one valuation metric among many, and it is not without flaws. For those who are keen learners of equity analysis, the Simply Wall St analysis model here may be something of interest to you.

See our latest analysis for Ashtead Technology Holdings

Step By Step Through The Calculation

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. To start off with, we need to estimate the next ten years of cash flows. 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 discount the value of these future cash flows to their estimated value in today's dollars:

10-year free cash flow (FCF) forecast

("Est" = FCF growth rate estimated by Simply Wall St)
Present Value of 10-year Cash Flow (PVCF) = UK£337m

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 (1.9%) 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 7.2%.

Terminal Value (TV)= FCF₂₀₃₄ × (1 + g) ÷ (r – g) = UK£65m× (1 + 1.9%) ÷ (7.2%– 1.9%) = UK£1.3b

Present Value of Terminal Value (PVTV)= TV / (1 + r)¹⁰= UK£1.3b÷ ( 1 + 7.2%)¹⁰= UK£627m

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 UK£964m. To get the intrinsic value per share, we divide this by the total number of shares outstanding. Relative to the current share price of UK£8.0, the company appears quite good value at a 33% 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.

Important Assumptions

Now the most important inputs to a discounted cash flow are the discount rate, and of course, the actual cash flows. If you don't agree with these result, have a go at the calculation yourself and play with the 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 Ashtead Technology Holdings 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 7.2%, which is based on a levered beta of 1.082. 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.

SWOT Analysis for Ashtead Technology Holdings

Strength

• Earnings growth over the past year exceeded the industry.

• Debt is well covered by earnings and cashflows.

Weakness

• Dividend is low compared to the top 25% of dividend payers in the Trade Distributors market.

Opportunity

• Annual earnings are forecast to grow faster than the British market.

• Trading below our estimate of fair value by more than 20%.

Threat

• Revenue is forecast to grow slower than 20% per year.

Looking Ahead:

Although the valuation of a company is important, it shouldn't be the only metric you look at when researching a company. The DCF model is not a perfect stock valuation tool. Preferably you'd apply different cases and assumptions and see how they would impact the company's valuation. 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 Ashtead Technology Holdings, there are three important aspects you should further examine:

1. Risks: Consider for instance, the ever-present spectre of investment risk. We've identified 1 warning sign with Ashtead Technology Holdings , and understanding it should be part of your investment process.

2. Future Earnings: How does AT.'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.

3. 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 British stock every day, so if you want to find the intrinsic value of any other stock just search here.