In business valuation, a common mistake is the incorrect determination of free cash flow (FCF [t+1]) at the beginning of the stable, or long-term growth period, which can lead to significant differences in the final outcome.

The point is, during the transition from the rapid growth stage to the stable growth stage, many variables in the balance sheet change significantly. For example, there may no longer be a need for investment growth in inventory, short-term assets and liabilities need adjustment, and some period might be required for the transition of policies to the stable growth period…

Academics suggest extending Financial Model by 3 years, so that the temporal progression of cash flows, sales growth, etc., can be properly accounted for… What’s shown in the photo is something we want to avoid.

Also, there are several important considerations to be made:

  1. Non-linear growth in the main opportunities – Here, it’s understood that every year’s stable return may not be equal, it may occur once every 3, 5, or 10 years… Hence, this moment must be accounted for when calculating Terminal Period FCF. The math is simple, periodic transitions should be converted to annual time values…
  2. Economic and budgetary variance affects the calculation of Terminal Value non-linearly… With us, there is no longer such variance, as we have moved to the Estonian model and payment of dividends only occurs at the transfer of winnings, but in many countries where companies try to “get ahead” of the tax burden for tax optimization purposes, the non-linearity of payments must be taken into account…
  3. When calculating the Terminal Value, there is a balance between capital expenditure (CapEx) and economic profit. For example, if forecasts are real (and not nominal) and we assume that real long-term growth is zero, then the filling of economic surplus and company resources should be mutually exclusive, but here there will be an out-of-the-future period because stabilization rarely occurs…

Source:
Corporate Valuation Theory, Evidence and Practice
Mark E. Zmijewski; Robert W. Holthausen
Second Edition