FINC2012 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Mutual Fund, Discounting, Credit Risk
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International Research Journal of Applied Finance ISSN 2229 â 6891
Vol. VI Issue â 8 August, 2015 Case Study Series
A Stock Valuation Case: An Application of the âMethod of Comparablesâ for Macyâs Shares
Halil D. Kaya* ,Julia S. Kwok
Abstract
The primary focus of this case is the application of the âMethod of Comparablesâ in the estimation of the value of a security. An investment decision will be made based on the comparison of the selling price and the estimated value. A security will be good for purchase if the estimated value is higher than the market price. This method utilizes basic financial ratios that are commonly provided by financial web sites. First, using Yahoo Finance website, the pricing, sales, book value of equity and shares outstanding data are collected for both the target firm and the competitor firms. Then, the pricing multiples (i.e. price earnings ratio, price to sales ratio and price to book ratio) of the competitors are calculated. After that, those multiples along with the target firmâs earnings, sales, book value and shares outstanding data are used to estimate target firmâs share value. The case also examines the impact of treating ânegativesâ in the data. Students will learn that replacing negative earnings with zeros tend to induce less bias in target firmâs value estimation than excluding the ânegativeâ data altogether.
Introduction
March 14, 2015 was a sunny day. Mary took advantage of the nice weather to have lunch at the Mall. On her way back to work, she walked by Susanâs investment office. Susan was Maryâs college roommate. They both liked shopping together to find new fashionable clothes. Looking at her watch, Mary realized she had half an hour to spend. She thought she would drop by and say hello to Susan.
The Performance of Macyâs
âHi, Susan, how are you?â How is your business?â said Mary. Susan was a recent finance graduate. Susan replied, âI am doing fine. Thank you. After so many years, the market is still recovering from the mortgage crisis; many investors have been buying back stocks that they have sold during the crisis. What are you up to?â âI want to start my investment in securities, too. I have a couple thousand dollars, would Macyâs be a good stock to invest in now? That was our favorite store to shop among all of the department stores,â Mary exclaimed. She added, âAlso, I read from Motleyâs Foolâs article on Macyâs today about its earnings per share growth for the last 16 quartersâ (Zahid Waheed, 2014).
In response to Maryâs questions, Susan checked the monthly adjusted returns of Macyâs in Yahoo Finance. She found that, since March 2010, Macyâs stock price had an average annual increase of 23.5% over the last 5 years. The stock rose from $19.98 to $57.38. Susan then told Mary that Macyâs was indeed a growing stock. She added that its success could be attributed to the omni-channel integration, e-commerce and magic selling strategies which allowed merging of sales channels, online shopping and better customer care. Since investment strategy 101 is to buy low, and sell high, given Macyâs stock price had been going up, Susan was not sure whether Macyâs was currently overvalued or undervalued by the market.
The Method of Comparables
Susan remembered her class lecture on the two types of valuation of stocks, namely absolute and relative evaluation. The absolute evaluation focuses on finding the intrinsic value of the security based on fundamentals. That involves more complicated models of discounting cash flows from dividends, operations and residual income.
On the other hand, relative evaluation is quick and easy to use. It assumes two similar securities should sell for one price in an efficient market, i.e. âLaw of One Price.â So an analyst can estimate its stock price by multiplying target companyâs specific earnings, sales and equity value data by the earning, sales and equity âper shareâ financial multiples of its competitors.
Since Mary was not familiarized with financial models, Susan decided to use the easy-toperform-and-analyze âComparables Methodâ to estimate the relative value of Macyâs stock.
The Financial Data
Dillards, JC Penney and Nordstrom were selected as competitors of Macyâs as they were all in retail department store business. Susan would need some financial data regarding these companies. She went to SECâs (i.e. Securities and Exchange Commission) website and downloaded these companiesâ most recent balance sheet and income statement data. Out of those statements, she knew that she would need the EPS (i.e. earnings per share), the sales number, the number of outstanding shares, and the book value of equity. She also knew that she would need the current share price for each company. After some work, she had found all the necessary information to run the analysis. Below were the data that she had gathered:
All data are in US$ except for the number of outstanding shares. The share price as of March 15, 2014 is shown in the first column. The âEarnings per shareâ is shown in the second column. The third column reports the book value of equity. The last column shows the number of outstanding shares.
| Firm | P ($) | EPS ($) | Sales ($) | BV of equity ($) | # of shares |
| Macy's | 58.58 | 3.93 | 27,931 mil. | 6,249 mil. | 378.3 mil. |
| Dillard's | 90.61 | 7.10 | 6,532 mil. | 1,992 mil. | 45.6 mil. |
| JC Penney | 8.71 | -5.57 | 11,859 mil. | 3,087 mil. | 249.3 mil. |
| Nordstrom | 61.33 | 3.77 | 12,166 mil. | 2,080 mil. | 194.5 mil. |
The Decision
Susan thinks that the following steps would be necessary to perform the analysis:
1.Based on the data above, calculate Sales per share, BV of equity/share values of all firms. Note that EPS is directly given.
2.Calculate P/E, P/Sales, and P/B for all of Macyâs competitors based on the data obtained.
3.Find the average of the P/E, P/Sales, and P/B multiples for the three competitors.
4.Multiply those averages calculated in step 3 with Macyâs EPS, Sales per share, and BV of equity/share values, respectively to get three value estimates for Macyâs shares.
5.The average of the three estimates would then be Susanâs best estimate of Macyâs value per share.
answer # 1-5 please
The discounted dividend model can be used to value divisions and firms that do not pay dividends. For the discounted dividend model, a firm's weighted average cost of capital is used as the discount rate. For the corporate valuation model, a firm's cost of equity is used as the discount rate. |
For the constant growth model to hold, a firm's cost of equity needs to be greater than its constant dividend growth rate (i.e., rs > g). From the constant growth model, if the constant dividend growth rate is equal to zero, a firm's share price is equal to the constant dividend divided by the cost of equity (i.e., g=0). If a company's constant dividend growth rate is negative, the formula for the constant growth model cannot be applied. |
The internal rate of return method (IRR) assumes that cash flows are reinvested at the internal rate of return. The modified internal rate of return method (MIRR) assumes that cash flows are reinvested at the weighted average cost of cpaital. For mutually exclusive projects, if there is a conflict between NPV and IRR, the project with the highest IRR is chosen. The IRR is independent of a firm's weighted average cost of capital. |
The WACC only represents the "hurdle rate" for a typical project with average risk. Therefore, the project's WACC should be adjusted to reflect the project's risk. Firms with riskier projects generally have a lower WACC. Holding all else constant, an increase in the target debt ratio tends to lower the WACC. |
Short-term bond prices are less sensitive than long-term bond prices to interest rate changes. Companies are not likely to call bonds unless interest rates have declined significantly. Thus, the call provision is valuable to firms but detrimental to long term investors. On balance, bonds that have a sinking fund are regarded as being safer than those without such a provision. |
If beta < 1.0, the security is less risky than average. According to the Security Market Line (SML), in general, a companyâs expected return will double when its beta doubles. According to the Security Market Line (SML), if a portfolio of real world stocks has a beta of zero, the required rate of return for the portfolio is equal to the risk-free rate. |
7.37%. 11.05%. 8.32%. |
It ignores cash flows occurring after the payback period. It ignores the time value of money, that is, dollars received in different years are all given the same weight. |
1.82. 2.00. 1.94 |
undervalued. overvalued. |
13.92%. 16.34%. 12.17%. |
$221.86. $195.23. $257.35. |
10.82%. 11.76%. 9.64%. |
10 years. 4.58 years. 6.12 years. |
12.04%. 14.93%. 9.15%. |
1.24 years. 1.62 years. 1.15 years.
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