Getting to an valuation is one of the more popular questions or topics our senior investment analysts get asked by Australian investors, especially those seeking dividend income. It’s not exclusive to Commonwealth Bank of Australia, of course.
ANZ Banking Group (ASX: ANZ) and Macquarie Group Ltd (ASX: MQG) are also very popular stocks on the ASX.
Before we walk through two valuation models you might use to answer the question yourself, let’s consider why investors like bank shares in the first place.
Alongside the tech and industrial sectors, the financials/banking industry is a favourite for Australian investors. The largest banks, including Commonwealth Bank of Australia and National Australia Bank operate in an ‘oligopoly’.
And while large international banks, such as HSBC, have tried to encroach on our ‘Big Four’, the success of foreign competitors has been very limited. In Australia, ASX bank shares are particularly favoured by dividend investors looking for franking credits.
How to use PE ratios
The price-earnings ratio, which is short for price-to-earnings, is a basic but popular valuation ratio. It compares yearly profit (or ‘earnings’) to today’s share price ($98.96). Unfortunately, it’s not the perfect tool for bank shares, so it’s essential to use more than just PE ratios for your analysis.
That said, it can be handy to compare PE ratios across shares from the same sector (banking) and determine what is reasonable — and what isn’t.
If we take the CBA share price today ($98.96), together with the earnings (aka profits) per share data from its 2020 financial year ($4.706), we can calculate the company’s PE ratio to be 21x. That compares to the banking sector average PE of 23x.
Next, take the profits per share (EPS) ($4.706) and multiply it by the average PE ratio for CBA’s sector (Banking). This results in a ‘sector-adjusted’ PE valuation of $106.21.
A simple guide to valuing CBA using dividends
A DDM is a more interesting and robust way of valuing companies in the banking sector, given that the dividends are pretty consistent.
DDM valuation modeling is one of the oldest methods used on Wall Street to value companies, and it’s still used here in Australia by bank analysts. A DDM model takes the most recent full year dividends (e.g. from last 12 months or LTM), or forecast dividends, for next year and then assumes the dividends grow at a consistent rate for a forecast period (e.g. 5 years or forever).
To make this DDM easy to understand, we will assume last year’s dividend payment ($3.50) grows at a fixed rate each year.
Next, we pick the ‘risk’ rate or expected return rate. This is the rate at which we discount the future dividend payments back to today’s dollars. The higher the ‘risk’ rate, the lower the share price valuation.
We’ve used a blended rate for dividend growth and a risk rate between 6% and 11%, then got the average.
This simple DDM valuation of CBA shares is $66.72. However, using an ‘adjusted’ dividend payment of $3.98 per share, the valuation goes to $71.34. The expected dividend valuation compares to Commonwealth Bank of Australia’s share price of $98.96. Since the company’s dividends are fully franked, you might choose to make one further adjustment and do the valuation based on a ‘gross’ dividend payment. That is, the cash dividends plus the franking credits (available to eligible shareholders). Using the forecast gross dividend payment ($5.69), our valuation of the CBA share price guesstimate to $101.92.
Where to from here
Please be mindful that these valuation methods are just the starting point of the research and valuation process. Please remember that. Banks are very complex companies and if the GFC of 2008/2009 taught investors anything, it’s that even the ‘best’ banks can go out of business and take shareholders down with them.
If you are looking at Commonwealth Bank of Australia shares and considering an investment, take your time to learn more about the bank’s growth strategy. For example, is it pursuing more lending (i.e. interest income) or more non-interest income (fees from financial advice, investment management, etc.)? Then, take a close look at economic indicators such as unemployment, house prices and consumer sentiment. Finally, it’s always essential to make an assessment of the management team.
