Walmart Inc Financial Analysis Essay
Student Name
Institution
Course
Professor
Date
1. Describe the shareholder structure of the company that you selected and determine how many shares must be purchased in order to have control of the company
The chosen company for this assignment is Walmart Inc., a US chain store in the retail industry, offering diverse household products in 24 countries under its 10,585 outlets consisting of Walmart US, Sam's Club US, and Walmart International. Walmart's shares amounted to 2,805,000,000 at the end of the financial year 2022 (Walmart.com, 2022 a). Despite being a publicly traded company, its control and ownership remain with the Waltons family after the death of the company's founder Sam Walton. The family has control of 50.9% of the company's shares held by Walton Entreprises LLC with 35%, Walton Family Holdings Trust with 15%, and Robison Walton with 0.09%. The other 49.1% is held by individuals such as Marc E. Lore and Douglas McMillon and investment companies such as Vanguard, which has an estimated 4.9% of Walmart's shares (Munson, 2022).
For a shareholder or a group of shareholders to have power over a company's operations and strategic decisions, they should own more than 50% of the total outstanding shares. In this case, a shareholder should have more than 1,402,500,000 shares to own the company. Given the current controlling power of the Walton family, the shares purchased should be more than 50% to gain control of the company and surpass the family's controlling power.
Walmart has consistently paid cash dividends to its shareholders for the past 5 years. In addition, the dividends have been growing gradually with an estimated 2% annual rate, as shown in the table below (Walmart.com, 2022 b). The dividends are paid out quarterly. This stock value calculation assumes that Walmart shareholders expect a 7% rate of return. This rate of return is estimated to be low due to the financial stability of Walmart and its excellent credit rating, as stated by Dalugdug (2019).
|
FY |
Dividend |
Growth Rate |
|
2022 |
$2.20 |
2% |
|
2021 |
$2.16 |
2% |
|
2020 |
$2.12 |
2% |
|
2019 |
$2.08 |
2% |
|
2018 |
$2.04 |
Calculations of the stock price:
P=D/(R-G)
FY2019 : $2.08/(0.07-0.02) = $41.60
FY2020 : $2.12/(0.07-0.02) = $42.40
FY2021 : $2.16/(0.07-0.02) = $43.20
FY2022 : $2.20/(0.07-0.02) = $44.00
The stock price has been growing gradually for the analyzed duration. Compared to the market stock price, the calculated prices indicate an overvalued company since Walmart's stock has traded above $90 since 2018, with the current price being $138.39 as of November 15, 2022 (Walmart.com, 2022 c). However, due to the financial stability of Walmart, the market price may be accurate and an indicator of the actual performance of this company. The value of dividends may not reflect the actual financial performance of a firm if it prefers retaining most of its returns for expansion purposes.
Acquisitions require the valuation of firms being acquired to establish a fair value for payment to its shareholders. One of the capital budgeting techniques applied in the valuation of the acquired company is discounted cash flow method (DCF). It is based on forecasting cashflows and discounting them to attain the firm's present value. Another significant component to consider in the valuation of the acquired firm is its goodwill, which is added to its value.
Historical Walmart Cash Flows and Growth Rates
|
Walmart Inc. Historical Financial Performance (in Millions) |
||||
|
FY |
2019 |
2020 |
2021 |
2022 |
|
Net Income |
$6,670 |
$14,881 |
$13,510 |
$13,673 |
|
Growth Rate |
123.10% |
-9.21% |
1.21% |
|
Since the growth rate has not been consistent, in this forecasting of the future cash flows, the assumed growth rate is 5% annually and a 3% perpetual growth after the forecasted duration.
Projected Walmart Cash Flows and Discounted Cash Flows
|
Walmart Inc. Valuation using DCF (in Millions) |
|||||||
|
FY |
2022 |
2023 |
2024 |
2025 |
2026 |
2027 |
Terminal Cash Flow |
|
Net Income |
$13,673 |
$14,357 |
$15,074 |
$15,828 |
$16,620 |
$17,451 |
$436,265 |
|
Growth Rate |
5% |
5% |
5% |
5% |
5% |
||
|
Perpetual Growth Rate |
3% |
||||||
|
Rate of Return |
7% |
||||||
|
Discounted Cash Flows |
$13,417 |
$13,167 |
$12,921 |
$12,679 |
$12,442 |
$311,051 |
|
|
Market Cap |
$375,677 |
||||||
After forecasting this company's cash flows for the projected 5 financial years, its market capitalization results to $375.68 billion. The terminal value is calculated by dividing the 2027 net income by the difference between the rate of return and the perpetual growth rate. Since goodwill should be accounted for in the acquisition, goodwill of $29 billion as of 2022 should be added to the firm's value (Walmart.com, 2022 a). Therefore, the acquirer would pay $404.68 billion.
References
Dalugdug, A. J. (2019, June 11). S&P revises Walmart outlook to stable from negative. Spglobal, https://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/news-insights/trending/P9UKl4MdUNE3ACsOe3PGsQ2
Munson, O. (2022, July 28). Who owns Walmart? It’s not China. History and look at the biggest shareholders in the company. USA Today. https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/retail/2022/07/28/who-owns-walmart-look-biggest-shareholders-company/10110511002/
Walmart.com (2022 a). Walmart 2022 Annual Report. Q4cdn.com. https://s201.q4cdn.com/262069030/files/doc_financials/2022/ar/WMT-FY2022-Annual-Report.pdf
Walmart.com. (2022 b). Full dividend history. Walmart.com. https://stock.walmart.com/stock-information/dividend-history/full-dividend-history/
Walmart.com. (2022 c). Stock info investor relations > stock info. Walmart.com. https://stock.walmart.com/stock-information/default.aspx