Does This Valuation Of Teradyne, Inc. (NASDAQ:TER) Imply Investors Are Overpaying?

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Today we'll do a simple run through of a valuation method used to estimate the attractiveness of Teradyne, Inc. (NASDAQ:TER) as an investment opportunity by estimating the company's future cash flows and discounting them to their present value. This is done using the Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) model. It may sound complicated, but actually it is quite simple!

Companies can be valued in a lot of ways, so we would point out that a DCF is not perfect for every situation. Anyone interested in learning a bit more about intrinsic value should have a read of the Simply Wall St analysis model.

See our latest analysis for Teradyne

The model

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.

Generally we assume that a dollar today is more valuable than a dollar in the future, and so the sum of these future cash flows is then discounted to today's value:

10-year free cash flow (FCF) estimate

Present Value of 10-year Cash Flow (PVCF)= $2.57b

"Est" = FCF growth rate estimated by Simply Wall St

We now need to calculate the Terminal Value, which accounts for all the future cash flows after this ten year period. The Gordon Growth formula is used to calculate Terminal Value at a future annual growth rate equal to the 10-year government bond rate of 2.7%. We discount the terminal cash flows to today's value at a cost of equity of 9.5%.

Terminal Value (TV) = FCF₂₀₂₉ × (1 + g) ÷ (r – g) = US$441m × (1 + 2.7%) ÷ (9.5% – 2.7%) = US$6.7b

Present Value of Terminal Value (PVTV) = TV / (1 + r)¹⁰ = $US$6.7b ÷ ( 1 + 9.5%)¹⁰ = $2.73b

The total value, or equity value, is then the sum of the present value of the future cash flows, which in this case is $5.29b. In the final step we divide the equity value by the number of shares outstanding. This results in an intrinsic value estimate of $30.89. Compared to the current share price of $41.6, the company appears potentially overvalued at the time of writing. Remember though, that this is just an approximate valuation, and like any complex formula - garbage in, garbage out.

Important 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. 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 Teradyne 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 9.5%, which is based on a levered beta of 1.13. 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.