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Write a summary about a comprehensive valuation summary on Goodman Fielder Company.
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This essay discusses a comprehensive valuation report on Goodman Fielder Company. The report examines the market and financial environment in which Goodman Fielder operates, and uses a number of helpful tools to estimate the value of Goodman Fielder shares. The period of interest runs from 1st January 2006 to 2nd February 2012.
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essay based on the summary above. Start with the words '#Goodman Fielder Company'.
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#Goodman Fielder Company Extensive Valuation Report
##Introduction
In this report, we have tried to present a comprehensive evaluation of Goodman Fielder Company. By considering the market and financial environment in which Goodman fielder operates, we have employed the use of several helpful tools to evaluate Goodman Fielder. Here, historical data on share returns, market returns and financial statements will be used to approximate the value of Goodman Fielder shares.
The calculated values will then be compared with the actual values of shares at the market. The period of our interest runs from 1 st January 2006 to 2 nd February 2012. The Du Pont approach has been used to compute for equity returns.
Later on, we used the CAPM model to estimate for the required rate of return. We then considered the DDM model, the cash flow model, the earnings ratio model and the price book ratio (Tobin 1969). These approaches have been helpful in understanding various facets (including price value and competitiveness) of the share pricing for Goodman Fielder (a major indicator of a company’s performance) (Viney 2009).
Often, we found it necessary to identify a number of actions that can be undertaken by the management of Goodman Fielder to better the prospects of their company. Background Information
Goodman Fielder is a food processing and retail company with base operations in Australia (Kenneth 1982). Among the products that are produced and marketed by the Goodman Fielder Company include bread, mayonnaise, milk, pizzas, cooking oils and pies (Kenneth 1982). The company ranks top among the main producers and distributors of food within Australia and the rest of the pacific Islands (Keown 2002).
In New Zealand, it (Goodman Fielder) is the largest supplier of flour ands commercial fat to manufacturing industries (Oliver 2009). Thus, apart from being a major producer and distributor of grocery commodities, Goodman Fielder is also a supplier of edible fat and flour to commercial food companies (Ross & Sergio 2005).
Many Australians love Goodman Fielder products; thus, the company has a good market segment here (Keown 2002). Goodman Fielder company employs more than seven thousand people within Australia and the larger pacific Islands region (New Zealand, Papua Guinea, New Caledonia and Fiji) (Oliver 2009).
Market Segment
As we have seen, Goodman Fielder has a large and wide market segment. Geographically, Goodman Fielder’s market segment cuts across Australia and the pacific Islands region (Collins & Kothari 1989). Goodman Fielder produces a variety of products that target various segments in the consumer market (Kopcke 1982). Among the most important segments here include baking, dairy market, fats and oils, and flour (Collins & Kothari 1989).
All of the mentioned segments fall within two major categories (Cuthbertson & Nitzsche 2008). The first category can be described as one that consists of processed items that are ready for consumption such as packaged milk, bread and pies (Oliver 2009). On the other hand, the second category consists of items that need further processing before they can be supplied to local markets (Kopcke 1982).
Such items, which are usually supplied to commercial food companies, include bulk flour and edible oils. Goodman fielder has always been among the two major large scale suppliers of food products in Australia (Cuthbertson & Nitzsche 2008). Likewise, the company is the main supplier of edible oil and flour to commercial companies in New Zealand (Oliver 2009).
Financial History
Although the financial performance of Goodman Fielder has averagely been good for a long time (Rayburn 1986) (where the company has been giving good returns on its equity), the same cannot be said about its performance in the past five years (where our analysis of the company will focus) (Ali et al. 1995). The past five years have not been good for Goodman Fielder Company (Cuthbertson & Nitzsche 2008).
During this period, its (Goodman Fielder) profits have been decreasing steadily (Collins & Kothari 1989). The share prices of Goodman Fielder have likewise been on a downward spiral (Cuthbertson & Nitzsche 2008). Below is a chart showing the performance of Goodman Fielder’s shares over the past six years (Reilly & Brown 2012).
As it can be seen above, the shares of Goodman Fielder have decreased by more than a half in within the past six years (Ali et al 1995). Some stock market analysts are even expecting Goodman Fielder shares to even fall further in the coming months. While Goodman Fielder products remain popular within its consumer market, the company has been performing dismally (Ali et al. 1995).
An evaluation of Goodman Fielder financial statements over the past six years reveals a steady decline in revenues (Ali et al. 1995). A number of factors have helped to contribute towards the dismal performance of Goodman Fielder (Easton 1989). First, the recent years of the global economic crisis created a difficult environment for Goodman Fielder Company (Jorgenson 1968).
The sales of Goodman Fielder products decreased as the market adjusted to the economic crisis to seek for cheaper food products from other producers (Atrill et al. 2006). Besides, many micro-scale competitors have emerged; thus, eating into the market segment of Goodman Fielder (Jorgenson 1968).
The exports of Goodman Fielder have also been affected by the relative strengthening of the Australian dollar in relation to export markets (Kenneth 1982). Moreover, new investments in bakery by the company (Goodman Fielder) have failed to improve on returns (Atrill et al. 2006).
The ever increasing fuel prices on the global market have coupled with other factors (such as increases in wage bills) to contribute in increasing production and operation costs for Goodman Fielder (Atrill et al. 2006). Such a direction has eaten into Goodman Fielder revenues; thus, contributing to its dismal performance (Easton 1989).
More importantly however, the management of Goodman Fielder have been slow in reacting to the ever dynamic business environment of their company; thus, leading to the poor fortunes of their company (Edwards & Bell 1961). While a large number of customers in Australia and the greater pacific Island region love Goodman Fielder products, the company has failed to solidify its market segment here (Atrill et al 2006).
The poor performance of Goodman Fielder shares in the stock market is an indication that share investors are losing their confidence in the ability in its managers (Kenneth 1982).
Unlike a number of her counterparts that have successfully emerged from the recent economic crisis (After shrinking during the global economic crisis, the Australian economy has been recording some growths from 2008) to expand their profits, Goodman Fielder is even performing worse at the moment than during the economic crisis period (Ross & Sergio 2005).
A number of objectives that have often been designed by Goodman fielder management to tackle the economic difficulties facing their company have so far failed to be fruitful (Atrill et al. 2006).
The 2011 half year results indicate one of the poorest performing periods for Goodman Fielder in the past six years (The general performance of Goodman Fielder has generally been on a steady decline over the past five years) (Kenneth 1982).
In the recent past, Goodman Fielder has at times been unable to pay dividends as a result of its decreasing cash inflows (Miller & Modigliani). Obviously, there is an urgent need for Goodman Fielder to restructure and adapt to the current economic environment in its market (Koller et al. 2005). Such a direction can only be achieved by a creative, innovative, and a new management at Goodman Fielder (Edwards & Bell 1961).
As it will become clear in our analysis, the general performance of Goodman fielder has been way below her peer companies (Baker & Powell 1999). Even with the current progressive growth of the Australian economy (after a difficult economic crisis period), the performance of Goodman Fielder has failed to mirror the expanding Australian GDP (Expected to grow by about 0.8 percent this year) (Edwards & Bell 1961).
However, the outlook of Goodman and fielder cannot be concluded to be grim (Kopcke 1982). Let us not forget that there are millions of customers that love Goodman Fielder products (Fama & French 2001). Much of Goodman Fielder’s future will however depend on the ability of its senior management to return the company where it was in the past decade (Miller & Modigliani).
With the expanding Australian economy, the possibilities of Goodman Fielder to expand its market share here are real (Baker & Powell 1999). Moreover, the economies of pacific Island economies such as New Zealand, where Goodman Fielder has vast interest, have also continued to show a progressive growth; thus, presenting new opportunities for Goodman Fielder to expand its markets in these areas too (Fama & French 2001).
However, as we had seen earlier, the onset of positive fortunes for Goodman Fielder is dependent on the ability of its management to deal with current difficulties and exploit existing opportunities in the market (Baker & Powell 1999).
##Return on Equity
Return on Equity is among the most important approaches that are usually utilised by investors to analyze a company’s profitability. Here, we will utilise the most recent returns (Half year returns for the period ending December 2011) data from Goodman Fielder Company to analyse its return on equity.
Generally, a company that is able to produce high returns from its equities without accumulating large debts boasts of large cash flows (Baker & Powell 1999). Thus, such companies can grow without new capital expenditures. Such an arrangement is useful for investors since they can withdraw funds from such a company and invest their withdrawals in other interests (Fama & French 2001).
So as to understand important components on equity returns, we will employ the use of the Du Pont Model in analysing the equity returns of Goodman Fielder Company (for the period mentioned) (Beneda 2003). So as to give investors information on specific areas of interest, the Du Pont model has divided equity returns into three multiples: Net profit Margin, asset turnover, and Gearing Ratio (Kopcke 1982).
##Thus:
Return on Equity = Net Profit margin*Asset Turnover* Gearing
###Table 1 below summarizes ROE’s for the past six years.
###Table 1: ROE
##YEAR Gearing ROE
##2011 2.58   3.6
##2010 2.78   2.8
##2009 3.01   3.4
##2008 2.9   4.3
##2007 2.6   4.7
##2006 2.2   5.6
An equity return of 3.6% is quite low (Fazzari et al. 1988). Such a rate is way below the acceptable average of about 12%.
With such rates, investors will thus shy away from buying Goodman Fielder shares at the stock exchange; thus, a low demand for the company shares at the stock market (Beneda 2003). Such a direction explains why the stock prices of Goodman Fielder have been falling steadily at the stock market (Fazzari et al. 1988).
In 2011, Goodman Fielder had a profit margin of 1.67 percent. Again, such a profit margin is quite low (Kopcke 1982). It therefore means that the company is making little profits from its revenues (Miller & Modigliani). Besides, such a low profit margin is also an indication that there is currently a low possibility that the company’s (Goodman Fielder) management will affect profits to down spiral further (Beneda 2003).
Since the profit margin is approaching one percentage point, a further decrease in profit margins is unlikely to result from the mismanagement of Goodman Fielder (Fazzari et al. 1988).
It is therefore safer to invest in Goodman Fielder shares with a disregard of how the company’s management could lead to future decreases in profits (Lehn & Makhija 1996). However, such a consideration cannot be used in isolation when identifying the potential of Goodman Fielder shares (Beneda 2003).
During the half year period ending 31 st December 2011, Goodman Fielder recorded an asset turnover of 83.5%. The asset turnover ratio is helpful in determining the capacity of a company in converting its assets to incomes (Black 1972). An efficiency of 83.5 % in converting assets to profits is quite acceptable (Fazzari et al. 1988). What however is of concern to investors is the low return on equity despite a leverage of 2.58 (Ohslen 1995).
Such an arrangement means that Goodman fielder is relying on debts to generate its low return on equity at 3.6% (Fruhan 1981). Without debts, Goodman fielder would generate a return on equity of only 1.4%. Such an arrangement means that there is a low cash flow within Goodman Fielder; hence, explaining why the company has been facing difficulties in performance (Black 1972).
Macro-Economic Factors
The global economy is expected to expand slightly in the next few years after experiencing the recent economic crisis (Viney 2009). Here, developing economies like China will experience most growth. On the other hand, developed economies like Australia will experience a slight growth (the Australian economy is expected to grow by 2%). There is usually a strong relationship between economic growth and company growth.
The growth prospects of Goodman Fielder Company in 2012 are thus positive. With a market in Indonesia and other Asia-Pacific economies (whose economies are expected to expand marginally), Goodman Fielder can expand her market further.
At 2 to 3 percent, the expected rate of inflation in 2012 is within acceptable limits (Green et al. 1996). Australian customers will therefore have enough money to spend on Goodman Fielder products. With a leverage of 2.58, the financial performance of Goodman Fielder will heavily rely on interest rates.
If interest rates increase, Goodman Fielder will spend more resources in financing her debt. On the other hand, a decrease in interest rates will help to finance the expansion plans of Goodman Fielder. Indications at the moment predict a fall in interest rates to levels below 3%. Here, the prospects of companies with large borrowing, such as Goodman Fielder, will remain bright.
Estimation of Goodman Fielder Shares
CAPM Model
The CAPM (Capital Pricing Model) model has for many years been a useful tool in calculating expected returns from shares (Lehn & Makhija 1996). Although several economists have criticised the effectiveness of the CAPM model in analysing share returns, no alternative model has been developed to date (Black 1972). Generally, the CAPM model can be represented in the equation below:
C= A+ β (B-A)
Where A is the risk free rate, B is the market return rate, β is the coefficient of the premium rate, and C is the expected rate of return (Ohslen 1995).
Our important responsibility lies in calculating beta for the capital pricing model (Black 1972). By observing the above equation, one can be able to see that it is an equation of a straight line; with a constant gradient and an intercept (Ohslen 1995). One can therefore be able to determine beta through the use of an appropriate graph that plots C against (B-A) (Fruhan 1981).
Having obtained the historical share return indexes from dates 1 st January 2006 to 2 nd February, 2012, we calculated the monthly share return rates in an excel worksheet (Gozzi et al. 2006). Such rates were obtained by calculating percentage changes in the share returns of adjacent months, and then multiplying the result by 12 to obtain the annual rates of returns (Lehn & Makhija 1996).
Likewise, a similar procedure was employed to calculate the expected monthly returns of the share market from a dataset than contained monthly return values of shares (from dates 1 st January 2006 to 2 nd February 2012) (Bond & Meghir 1994).
The free market rates were obtained from the 20 year Federal Reserve rates (from the historical data of the United States treasury rates) (Gozzi et al. 2006). As we have been using in other data sets, our period of interest here is from 1 st January 2006 to 2 nd February, 2012. The frequency of the treasury rates that we used is monthly.
The premium rate was then obtained by subtracting A from B (Lintner 1965). An appropriate graph was then drawn in excel where the rate of share returns was plotted against the premium rates (Lintner 1965). Our raw Beta is thus the coefficient of the premium rate, which (as shown below) was shown to be 0.9691.
As it is usually suggested, our raw beta needs to be adjusted as below:
0.9691 (0.67) + 0.33 =0.979
Thus, we obtain an adjusted value of 0.979 as our new beta (Lintner 1965).
In analysing the CAMP model, we used treasury rates from the Australian Reserve bank to proxy free market rates (Gozzi et al. 2006). Such a direction was informed by the stability of the treasury rates, and the very unlikely scenario of a default from the Australian government (Bond & Meghir 1994). Many economists are confident in using the US treasury rates to represent free market rates (Liynat & Zarwin 1990).
Such rates are often approximated at 5 %( Liynat & Zarwin 1990). However, it is useful to observe that in exceptional circumstances, treasury rates can decline (Liynat & Zarwin 1990). Such a direction was observed during the recent economic crisis, and also during the early months of 2012. Here, treasury rates went even below 3% during some months.
On the other hand, we employed the return value of the stock market to proxy the market return rate (Green et al. 1996). Since such a value is a representation of the average performance in market stocks, it may not represent a true picture of the market return rate (Green et al. 1996).
Here, it would be useful to obtain the standard deviation on stock performance so as to understand whether the estimation that we have used is useful in representing market returns (Bond & Meghir 1994).
However, since such an approach would involve a cumbersome procedure of evaluating the performance of all listed companies in the share market, we simply used the total value of stock returns to calculate our assumed market return rate (Liynat & Zarwin 1990).
Considering the micro-economic factors that we have discussed above, we found it useful to split the financial performance of Goodman Fielder into four categories: Very strong GDP growth, strong GDP growth, flat growth, weak growth. The table below summarize our estimates.
###Table 2: Market Return for Different Conditions of Growth.
GDP         Market Return Estimate(%) Probability (%) Market Return (%)
Very Strong (> 5%) 25             10        2.5       
Strong (2-5%)    15             60        9        
Flat (1-2%)     5             20        1        
Weak (<1%)     -10            10        -1        
Average                             11.5       
                                         
With an adjusted Beta, we calculated the current risk premium rate as follows. With a beta of 0.979, taking the current treasury rate (2.75% as obtained from the historical treasury rates), and assuming an average free market return of 5% (since most economist estimate that the premium rate varies from 3.5% to 6%, we take an average of 5%), the risk premium rate can be calculated as:
A= 0.05+ 0.979 (0.05) = 9.9%
The Dividend valuation Model can be represented as follows:
Value= Expected Dividend/ (Return on equity-Growth rate)
The table below summarizes returns for different conditions of economic growth.
###Table 3: Returns for different conditions of economic growth
GDP         Market Return (%) Risk Premium Required Rate Of Return
Very Strong (> 5%) 2.5        -0.025    0.025525        
Strong (2-5%)    9         0.04     0.08916        
Flat (1-2%)     1         -0.04     0.01084        
Weak (<1%)     -1         -0.06     -0.00874        
Average (11.5)   11.5        0.065     0.113635        
The discount rate is thus 9.9% and the last dividend payout was 2.5 cents per share (Liynat & Zarwin 1990).
We estimate a growth rate of 2%. As we had seen earlier during equity returns analysis, the ratio of profit margin was approaching 1%. Such a scenario implies that the management of Goodman Fielder will in future have a slight impact on future profit declines (Bond & Meghir 1994).
Since share prices have also declined to lowest levels, we can expect the share prices to stabilize and grow at a stabilized rate of 2% (Lone et al. 1996). We do not expect the shares to grow at a higher rate at the moment since the company (Goodman Fielder) will require a longer period of time to recover (Bowen et al. 1986).
###Table 4: DDM Approximations for Share Prices
Year     Growth     Growth Rate Share   
2012-2014   Slow Growth  0.02     0.639240506
2014-2016   High Growth  0.08     2.736842105
2017 0NWARDS Stable Growth 0.03     0.735507246
Thus, as shown in the table above, the current price for Goodman Fielder Shares is about 0.6392. This particular value is comparable with the market value that has been ranging from 80 cents to 40 cents in 2011.
We can also calculate the implied growth rate by assuming that the stock prices for Goodman and Fielder are correctly valued (Lone et al. 1996). Here, with the greatly unstable Goodman Fielder stocks, the challenge would be in picking a historical value of the stock (Lone et al. 1996). We can select the sock value on 1 st January, 2012 (Green et al. 1996). On this particular date, the stock was traded at 42.42 cents. Thus:
0.4242 = 0.025 (1+g/2)/ (0.099/2-g/2)
Thus, implied growth rate is 0.019.
Cash Flow
Since Goodman Fielder does not always pay dividends, we can use cash flows per share (instead of dividends) to estimate its share value (Head 2008). The cash flow model is similar to the DDM model except that we use cash flows per share, instead of dividends, to calculate share returns.
Based on our macro-economic assumptions, we think that Goodman Fielder will experience a slow growth followed by a stage of high growth, before settling at a steady growth. The table below presents approximations of the share price for the three stages above.
###Table 5 Price Earning Ratio and Price Book Value model
Year     Growth     Growth Rate Share   
2012-2014   Slow Growth  0.02     1.856865823
2014-2016   Slow Growth  0.08     7.949978947
2017 0NWARDS Stable Growth 0.03     2.136501449
Price earnings ratio is useful in indicating the amount of money that investors are willing to spend for each dollar earned in the Goodman Fielder company.
Dividing the formulae above by EPS (Earnings per share):
Price earning ratio/EPS= Share market Price/EPS/ Earnings pet share
According to the DDM:
##P = A (1+g)/(k-g).
Dividing the formulae above by EPS:
P/EPS = Payout Ratio (1+g)/(k-g).
Thus, price earnings ratio is dependant on the following: the rate of growth, the required rate of return, and payout ratio. However, since the performance of Goodman Fielder has been very unstable, we will use the ratio multiplier to estimate the EPS of Goodman Fielder as shown below.
###Table 6: Approximated EPS
Year       2011  2012    
Market Price       0.639   
Growth Rate       0.02    
EPS        0.128 0.13056  
Approx P/E Ratio     4.894301471
It is important to note that with the presence of many dynamics at Goodman fielder, the earning ratio has been changing constantly (Bowen et al. 1986).
##Price Book Ratio
Likewise, Price book ratio = Equity market value/ Equity book value
Price book ratio has been computed in the table below.
###Table 7: Price Book Ratio
YEAR  2012-2014  2014-2012  2017 ONWARDS
EBV  1754.4    1857.6    1771.6   
EBVPS 0.8772    0.9288    0.8858   
P/B  1.372253465 0.339369231 1.204338916 
##Discussion
As we had seen, one of the main challenges that one is likely to face while evaluating a company like Goodman Fielder is the presence of many dynamics at play here (Head 2008). For example, data on stock returns for the past six years indicates a gradual dip in stock prices, which change on a continuous basis (Bowen et al. 1986).
During our earlier analysis, we were able to observe a pattern of struggle and poor performance at Goodman Fielder (Chitou & Ketz 1991). Generally, the overall trend of stock returns has been on a downward trend (Peasnell 1981). Although a number of catalytic activities have once in a while helped to stimulate the share prices to rise slightly, the general direction of the stock prices has been a dip (Head 2008).
For example, on 6 th January 2012, the stock prices for Goodman fielder rose by a third following a 10 percent acquisition of the company’s stake by Wilmer international limited (Ohlsen 1995).
However, this particular rise of stocks was short-lived as share prices fell down again after some time (Bowen et al. 1986). Below is a graph showing an analysis of Goodman Fielder stocks in the past 18 months. As it can be seen, the performance has generally been poor.
With such a trend, the Goodman Fielder shares have decreased their competitiveness in the stock market: hence, the observed dipping prices (Head 2008). The root mean square that was calculated by Excel’s regression was 0.19. As a result, about 19% of the risks that can be associated with Goodman Fielder are systematic (Peasnell 1981).
Such Risks are related to trading activities at the stock market (Hitchner 2006). On the other hand, 81 percent of the risks that can be associated with Goodman Fielder are non systematic (Rappaport 1981). Such risks can be associated with the management of Goodman Fielder.
From an analysis of the DDM model, we were able to obtain a stock price of 63.28 Cents (Chitou & Ketz 1991). Such a value is comparable with the present value of the company’s stock at the share market (Hitchner 2006).
However, it is still difficult to determine the accuracy of such a calculated value due to the volatile prices of the company’s share prices (leading to great variations in dividend payouts), which change constantly at the share market (Rappaport 1981). Still, the calculated value can hold for the period under which we evaluated the company (January 2006 to March 2012).
On the other hand, our calculated value from cash flows was quite higher than the average share prices of Goodman Fielder (Chitou & Ketz 1991). A possible explanation for such an arrangement is the usual handling of large cash flows in companies that deal with perishables such as Goodman Fielder (Hitchner 2006).
There is also a possibility of having taken wrong assumptions in our calculations, and, or errors in our computation (Jorgenson 1968). Due to a continual decrease in its share prices, the shares of Goodman Fielder could also be undervalued at the moment (Chitou & Ketz 1991).
In the last six years, the share prices of the (Goodman Fielder) company have decreased by over 50%. The management of Goodman fielder needs to develop innovative solutions that would steer their company back to the years of high profitability and high share capitalization (Rayburn 1986).
Again, it is important to note that our understanding of the company from the models that have been evaluated above is limited (Scott 1992). Since such an evaluation is dependant on the usually speculative share market, we cannot depend on the company’s volatile share prices to arrive at our conclusions (Sainsbury 2010).
Although many investors will use some of the methodologies that we have employed above to evaluate the potential of companies, their overall investments are usually based on speculation (Scott 1992).
Still, since the performance of a company’s share price is proxy to the financial performance of a company, it can give us important information in evaluating a company (Sharpe 1964).
The problem with shares like those of Goodman is that since they have been changing very gradually, it is difficult to associate specific share prices with the company’s performance (Sharpe 1964). The observed overall trend however has been a general decline in the price of the shares (Siegel 1985).
Although the Dividends model approach has been useful in helping us to approximate a seemingly accurate value of Goodman fielder’s share price (based on comparison with other share prices), the cash flow system is a more accurate method of determining a company’s share value (Sainsbury 2010).
With a poor performance record that has recently streamed from the company (Goodman Fielder), the seemingly high price of shares that was approximated by the cash flow model indicates that the company is currently undervalued at the stock Market (Stewart 1991).
In the direction of increasing its market share value, Goodman Fielder company needs to convince investors of its worth (Stiglz & Weiss 1981). A robust and creative management will especially help in achieving such a goal (Stiglz & Weiss 1981).
##Comment on Models
We have used four different models to evaluate the financial performance of Goodman Fielder Company. These four models include the dividend valuation model, the cash flow model, the price earnings model and the price book value model. The value of Goodman Fielder share price that was approximated by the dividends ratio model is close to the stock performance of the company at the moment (Jorgenson 1968). t.
Although the above model could have provided a useful approach in evaluating the share value of Goodman Fielder, a number of factors can compromise the accuracy of the DDM. As we have seen, the general performance of Goodman Fielder has been volatile, poor, and a bit unpredictable.
It therefore means that the financial state of Goodman Fielder has been on a constant change (mostly in a negative direction). Dividend payouts from Goodman Fielder have reflected the unstable state of Goodman Fielder by changing constantly.
Since we used the last dividend payouts to calculate the share price of Goodman Fielder (through the use of the DDM model), the price value that was calculated may not reflect the current state of Goodman Fielder.
As it can be reflected in the 2011 half year a financial result, a lot has changed in Goodman Fielder since the last dividend payout. Moreover, with the current state of dismal performance, Goodman Fielder will likely avoid paying dividends payouts in the near future (as it has been doing lately); thus, presenting a difficulty in obtaining dividend values for feeding the DDM.
Still, the main advantage that arises in the use of the DDM to calculate share values is the strong relationship that usually exists between share values and dividend payouts. However, for a company that has been moving in a difficult labyrinth like Goodman Fielder, it is not wise to use the DDM to calculate its share value (Collins & Kothari 1989).
For a company that is undergoing a crisis like Goodman fielder, the cash flow system is a more accurate method for determining the company’s share value (Sainsbury 2010). With a poor performance record that has recently streamed from the company (Goodman Fielder), it is wiser to rely on cash flows (rather than dividends) to calculate the share price of the company.
Such a direction eliminates two major problems that were presented by the DDM; unsteady dividend payouts and lack of dividend payouts. As it is often the case, companies that are undergoing a crisis will prefer to reinvest resources than pay dividends (Stewart 1991).
The cash flow model is therefore the best tool that can yield a more accurate and reliable value of a company’s share price than all the other approaches that we used. The share price of Goodman Fielder as per the cash flow model was much higher than the current share price of Goodman Fielder at the stock market (Ohlsen 1995).
It is worth mentioning here that although the cash flow value was marginally higher than the stock value of Goodman fielder at the share market, the stock prices of Goodman Fielder have in recent years been performing better than the cash flow value. Here, the pointer of the cash flow value could be that the current share price of Goodman Fielder is undervalued.
The calculated value of the earning ratio for Goodman Fielder is 9.2. This particular value is slightly different, but comparable with the 11 points value that has been approximated at the Bloomberg site. Our calculated price book value for Goodman Fielder Company is 1.33. Again, this particular value is different, but comparable to the 0.98 points value at the Bloomberg site.
Although the price earnings ratio and the price book value are great in providing us with values that we can use to calculate share values for Goodman and fielder, they lack one important component in estimating share values-the future performance of Goodman and Fielder.
Through the use of a growth rate, the DDM and cash flow models estimate the future performance of a company while estimating the current share value of a company.
##Conclusion
During the past six years, the financial performance of Goodman Fielder has declined steadily. Such a direction has seen the company’s share value drop over the same period. While we obtained a yield from the dividends model that approximated the current value of shares at the stock market, the more accurate cash flows model yielded a value that was at least thrice the current share price.
Since most stock investors like earning dividends, the stock market can thus value shares on the basis of dividend payouts (Strong & Walker 1993). Such a direction can explain the seemingly accurate value that was obtained from the dividends evaluation model. However, dividends can at times be misleading on the true value of a company’s share price.
After paying a dividend of five cents, Goodman Fielder Company was able to pay only half of that amount in the last financial year. Therefore, as it was implied by the cash flow model, the share prices of Goodman Fielder are thus undervalued at the moment (Strong & Walker 1993).