In: Finance
What are the most common DCF valuation models?
| Companies are valued for the following purposes: | 
| 1. during mergers or acquisitions | 
| 2.to know their true & fair networth or saleable value or market price | 
| 3. by potential lenders/investors when they lend/invest money --so as to gauge the safety of their money as well as returns/earnings surety | 
| 4. to self-assess about growth ---ie. Whether the company is growing& by how much? | 
| DCF or discounted cash flow valuation is of immense use to the investor/purchasor ,who discounts all the expected future cash flows to happen in that investment , at his cost of capital /financing & the sum of the present values ,so obtained is its current value or purchase price. | 
| For this analysis, | 
| different types of DCF valuation models are used depending on the type of free cash-flows employed in the process, like --- | 
| free cash-flows to firm (FCFF) or | 
| free cash-flows to equity (FCFE) or | 
| discounted dividend model (DDM) that uses dividend cash flow to be received in future . | 
| 1..Free cash-flows to firm (FCFF) | 
| FCFF=EBIT*(1-Tax rate)+Depn.& Amortisation-CAPEX+/-Changes to working capital | 
| This FCFF is obtained for the future periods, including the terminal value & discounted at the weighted average cost of capital (ie.both debt & equity) to the company. | 
| 2..Free cash-flows to equity (FCFE) | 
| FCFE=Net Profit after tax +Depn.& Amortisation-CAPEX+/-Changes to working capital+/- Changes to debt | 
| Yearly FCFE is obtained for the future periods, including the terminal value & discounted at the cost of equity to the company. | 
| 3. Discounted dividend model (DDM) that uses dividend cash flow to be received in future . | 
| Future dividends are estimated along the lines of growth ,including the terminal dividends , and then discounted at the cost of equity. | 
| Thus all the DCF models give importance to : | 
| future real,hard-cash flow rather than book income | 
| time value for that cash flow and | 
| selects its cost of financing as the discount rate to discount the cash flows to their respective present values. |