An Intrinsic Calculation For Uber Technologies, Inc. (NYSE:UBER) Suggests It's 48% Undervalued
How far off is Uber Technologies, Inc. (NYSE:UBER) 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 expected future cash flows and discounting them to today's value. This will be done using the Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) model. There's really not all that much to it, even though it might appear quite complex.
Remember though, that there are many ways to estimate a company's value, and a DCF is just one method. If you still have some burning questions about this type of valuation, take a look at the Simply Wall St analysis model.
Crunching The Numbers
We are going to use a two-stage DCF model, which, as the name states, takes into account two stages of growth. The first stage is generally a higher growth period which levels off heading towards the terminal value, captured in the second 'steady growth' period. 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.
Generally we assume that a dollar today is more valuable than a dollar in the future, 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
2023 | 2024 | 2025 | 2026 | 2027 | 2028 | 2029 | 2030 | 2031 | 2032 | ||
| Levered FCF ($, Millions) | US$2.63b | US$4.37b | US$5.88b | US$6.92b | US$8.50b | US$9.68b | US$10.7b | US$11.5b | US$12.2b | US$12.8b | |
| Growth Rate | Analyst | Analyst | Analyst | Analyst | Analyst | Est @ | Est @ | Est @ | Est @ | Est @ | |
| Estimate Source | x12 | x13 | x8 | x6 | x5 | 13.87% | 10.34% | 7.87% | 6.14% | 4.93% | |
| Present Value ($, Millions) Discounted @ 8.1% | US$2.4k | US$3.7k | US$4.7k | US$5.1k | US$5.8k | US$6.1k | US$6.2k | US$6.2 | US$6.1k | US$5.9k |
Present Value of 10-year Cash Flow (PVCF) = US$52b
After calculating the present value of future cash flows in the initial 10-year period, we need to calculate the Terminal Value, which accounts for all future cash flows beyond 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 (2.1%) 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 8.1%.
Terminal Value (TV)= FCF2032 × (1 + g) ÷ (r – g) = US$13b× (1 + 2.1%) ÷ (8.1%– 2.1%) = US$218b
Present Value of Terminal Value (PVTV)= TV / (1 + r)10= US$218b÷ ( 1 + 8.1%)10= US$100b
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$152b. In the final step we divide the equity value by the number of shares outstanding. Relative to the current share price of US$39.2, the company appears quite undervalued at a 48% 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 calculation above is very dependent on two assumptions. The first is the discount rate and the other is the 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 Uber Technologies 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 8.1%, which is based on a levered beta of 1.010. 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 Uber Technologies
Strength
No major strengths identified for UBER.
Weakness
Shareholders have been diluted in the past year.
Opportunity
Expected to breakeven next year.
Has sufficient cash runway for more than 3 years based on current free cash flows.
Trading below our estimate of fair value by more than 20%.
Threat
Debt is not well covered by operating cash flow.
Looking Ahead:
Valuation is only one side of the coin in terms of building your investment thesis, and it is only one of many factors that you need to assess 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 Uber Technologies, there are three additional elements you should explore:
Risks: For example, we've discovered 1 warning sign for Uber Technologies that you should be aware of before investing here.
Future Earnings: How does UBER'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!