INTRODUCTION
After years as a teacher and principal, Stacey Boyd and HBS classmate Mandy Lee realized that the ability to track school and student progress was insufficiently developed. The Project Achieve was created to answer this need with the creation of, an information management system for schools. This project allows the management of information for administrator, professors, parents and students. Our team had to write a report about this company and to value the Project Achieve. We started by calculating the pre- and post money valuation, then the cash flow projections, and we finished by calculating, the expected return on equity and the final equity value. To facilitate the calculation of this value, our team made some assumptions that we will explain and justify all along that report.
ANALYSIS
A. PRE- AND POST-MONEY VALUATION
Initially funded by angel investors, the project had its first official round of funding of 544,000. We calculated the pre- and post- money valuation, before, and after this funding. Our only assumption in this valuation was to incorporate the number of stock options given to employees as common equity. As a result, the number of common shares increases from one million to 1083950.61728. (See Sheet Question 1 in Excel file)
To get a better valuation of that company, we went more in detail, to understand the real impact of a project like Achieve. We computed the expected cash flows for the next 10 years. But, cash flow analysis is a
1.1. Review principles of estimating project cash flows. Suggested reading: Ch. 9 “Capital Budgeting and Cash Flow Analysis” in “Contemporary Financial Management”, 11th ed. by Moyer, McGuigan, and Kretlow.
The relatively well posed project with promises of great future pay offs must be examined closely nevertheless to determine its true profitability. As such, the Super Project’s NPV must be calculated, however before we proceed we must acknowledge the relevant cash flows. The project incurred an expense of testing the market. This expense, however, must not be included in our cash flow analysis because it can be considered a sunk cost. This expense is required for ‘taking a temperature’ of the market and will not be recovered. Other sources of cash flow include:
1. Possibility of making almost 10 million in 10 years time with how they perceived low risk and high return opportunity.
Our estimated cost of capital, 20.81%, is lower than Ricketts’ expected return, 30%-50%, thus the investment is worthy. However, it’s higher than other pessimistic members’ expected return, 10%-15%, making the decision more complex and requiring further valuation。
EEC calculated the amount of time involved the anticipation of its cost ($3 million). The timeline in recovering their cost of investment ($2 million) initially for the foundation of this investment any profit made in the future of this investment will be justified as a profit for the company. If EEC can anticipate a fast return on its investment it is a profitable wise decision in making the investment financial, it is considered to be an easier way of formulating investments financially. On the basis of one year all cash flows is added together equal to the sum of $2 million originally invested, then it is divided by the annual cash flow of $500,000. The calculation of the payback period would equal four years. After this time frame any financial proceeds will be considered profitable for the company. I conclude that the timeframe is adequate in comparison of the investment in this worthwhile investment financial venture for the company.
While performing a DCF analysis, a thorough understanding of the business being analyzed is needed to determine the correct assumptions and items used for the analysis. For this reason, Laura believed this was still a good method to value stocks in this industry. This analysis yields a higher company value than current price.
In the first step we analyze the data and calculate the free cash flow from the inception of the project to the foreseeable future.
in our calculations, as this company exhibited dramatic value differences to others in the sample, (likely to skew our results and prove misleading). Using the average of the revised sample field for each ratio, we inserted Torrington’s values where appropriate to generate an entity value. The findings generated two values for Torrington, 606 million and 398 million. Taking the average of these two numbers, Torrington exhibited a relative value of 502.41 million. Because of the lack of related information given in the case, and the often large differences in measures amongst competitors, different capital structures, internal management strategies, there remained many unknowns in our model. We decided it would be best to use this valuation to reaffirm our assumptions in our DCF valuation. (Please see exhibits)
Using the AFN equation, it was calculated (assuming there were no dividends paid, and that sales were expected to grow to $3.6 million) that the amount of extra funding needed would be approximately $76,360. This amount would
Market value proportions of: Debt = $1,147,200 / $4,897,200 = 23.4% Pref. Share = $1,250,000 / $4,897,200 = 25.5% Common equity = $2,500,000 / $4,897,200 = 51.1%
In fully investigating all of our calculations we are fully invested in using the Net Present Value figures we calculated as a means of ranking the eight projects. In doing so we found reasons in which why the Net Present Value was our benchmark for ranking the projects and why we did not use the Payback Method. The Payback Method ignores the time value of money, requires and arbitrary cutoff point, ignores cash flows beyond the cutoff date, and is biased against long-term projects, such as research and development and new projects. When comparing the Average Accounting Return Method to the Net Present Value method we found that the Average Accounting Return Method is a worse option than using the Payback Method. The Average Accounting Return Method is not a true rate of return and the time value of money is ignored, it uses an arbitrary benchmark cutoff rate, and is based on accounting net income and book values, not cash flows and market values. Plain and simply put, the Net Present Value method is the best criterion to use when ranking these eight
We valued the company using four different methods; Net Present Value, Internal Rate of Return, Modified Internal Rate of Return and Profitability Index. We began with the Net Present Value, or NPV, calculation. NPV values an investment’s profitability based on the projected future cash inflows and outflows of the investment, discounted back to present value using the WACC. The calculations for NPV are presented in Appendix 2. We started by separating cash inflows and outflows by each year. We used Bob Prescott’s estimates for the revenue per year and related operating costs of cost of goods sold as
There are several traditional methods that can be used in appraising investment decisions. For instance, the net present value method (NPV) which entails estimating the costs and revenues of a project and discounting these figures to get their present values. Projects with the biggest positive net present value are the ones chosen as they represent the best stream of benefits of investing in the project over and above recovering the cost of initiating the projects. The discount rate is another method which is similar to the net present value method but reflects more on the time preference. This approach may focus on the opportunity cost of
A discounted cash flow analysis measures the value of a company todays based on calculated predications of how much money they will make in the future. This valuation method is used to determine how profitable an investment is. To conduct a DCF analysis, I used future free cash flows predictions ranging from years 2016 through 2026 to get an estimated present value. My ultimate goal in conducting a discounted cash flow analysis for this project is to value to the equity of the stock and find the stock price for the Danaher Corporation.
In particular, small changes in inputs can result in large changes in the value of a company, given the need to project cash-flow to infinity. James Montier argues that, "while the algebra of DCF is simple, neat and compelling, the implementation becomes a minefield of problems". He cites, in particular, problems with estimating cash flows and estimating discount rates. Despite the issues, DCF analysis is very widely used and is perhaps the primary valuation tool amongst the financial analyst community.