Canadian Pacific Railway Limited (TSE:CP) Shares Could Be 33% Below Their Intrinsic Value Estimate

Does the June share price for Canadian Pacific Railway Limited (TSE:CP) 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. One way to achieve this is by employing the Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) model. Don't get put off by the jargon, the math behind it is actually quite straightforward.

Companies can be valued in a lot of ways, so we would point out that a DCF is not perfect for every situation. For those who are keen learners of equity analysis, the Simply Wall St analysis model here may be something of interest to you.

View our latest analysis for Canadian Pacific Railway

Crunching the numbers

We're using the 2-stage growth model, which simply means we take in account two stages of company's growth. In the initial period the company may have a higher growth rate and the second stage is usually assumed to have a stable growth rate. 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) estimate

	2022	2023	2024	2025	2026	2027	2028	2029	2030	2031
Levered FCF (CA$, Millions)	CA$2.58b	CA$4.01b	CA$4.44b	CA$5.05b	CA$5.50b	CA$5.87b	CA$6.17b	CA$6.42b	CA$6.64b	CA$6.82b
Growth Rate Estimate Source	Analyst x11	Analyst x7	Analyst x2	Analyst x2	Est @ 8.87%	Est @ 6.68%	Est @ 5.14%	Est @ 4.07%	Est @ 3.32%	Est @ 2.79%
Present Value (CA$, Millions) Discounted @ 6.1%	CA$2.4k	CA$3.6k	CA$3.7k	CA$4.0k	CA$4.1k	CA$4.1k	CA$4.1k	CA$4.0k	CA$3.9k	CA$3.8k

("Est" = FCF growth rate estimated by Simply Wall St)
Present Value of 10-year Cash Flow (PVCF) = CA$38b

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 (1.6%) 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 6.1%.

Terminal Value (TV)= FCF₂₀₃₁ × (1 + g) ÷ (r – g) = CA$6.8b× (1 + 1.6%) ÷ (6.1%– 1.6%) = CA$152b

Present Value of Terminal Value (PVTV)= TV / (1 + r)¹⁰= CA$152b÷ ( 1 + 6.1%)¹⁰= CA$84b

The total value, or equity value, is then the sum of the present value of the future cash flows, which in this case is CA$121b. In the final step we divide the equity value by the number of shares outstanding. Compared to the current share price of CA$88.0, the company appears quite undervalued at a 33% discount to where the stock price trades currently. Valuations are imprecise instruments though, rather like a telescope - move a few degrees and end up in a different galaxy. Do keep this in mind.

dcf

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. You don't have to agree with these inputs, I recommend redoing the calculations yourself and playing with them. 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 Canadian Pacific Railway 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 6.1%, which is based on a levered beta of 1.075. 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.

Looking Ahead:

Whilst important, the DCF calculation shouldn't be the only metric you look at when researching a company. The DCF model is not a perfect stock valuation tool. Rather it should be seen as a guide to "what assumptions need to be true for this stock to be under/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 Canadian Pacific Railway, we've put together three additional elements you should consider:

1. Risks: As an example, we've found 3 warning signs for Canadian Pacific Railway (1 is concerning!) that you need to consider before investing here.

2. Future Earnings: How does CP'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. The Simply Wall St app conducts a discounted cash flow valuation for every stock on the TSX every day. If you want to find the calculation for other stocks just search here.

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This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.