Walk me through a DCF from start to finish in under two minutes.
DCFInterview question
General educational practice only. This is not an actual, confidential, leaked, or firm-provided interview question. Check important technical details against primary learning materials.
The answer
A DCF values a company as the present value of its future unlevered free cash flows discounted at WACC. I do it in six steps.
- I project unlevered free cash flow for an explicit forecast period, typically five to ten years, until the business reaches a mature steady state. Unlevered free cash flow equals EBIT times one minus the tax rate, plus depreciation and amortization, minus capital expenditures, minus the increase in net working capital.
- I estimate the terminal value for all cash flows beyond that explicit period, either with the Gordon growth method, growing the final-year cash flow at a perpetuity rate below long-run GDP, or by applying an exit multiple to terminal-year EBITDA.
- I compute the discount rate as WACC, the weighted average cost of capital, which blends the required returns of all capital providers because unlevered cash flow belongs to both debt and equity holders.
- I discount each year’s projected free cash flow and the terminal value back to today at WACC. The sum gives enterprise value.
- I bridge to equity value by subtracting net debt and any other debt-like claims such as preferred stock.
- I divide by fully diluted shares outstanding to get an implied share price and compare it with the market price to judge over- or undervaluation. Because the terminal value typically contributes 60 to 80 percent of enterprise value, I always sensitize WACC and terminal growth and present the result as a range.
DCF timeline
| Line item | Year 1 | Year 2 | Year 3 | Year 4 | Year 5 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free cash flow | 50 | 54 | 58 | 63 | 68 |
| PV of free cash flow | 45 | 45 | 44 | 43 | 42 |
| Terminal value (Year 5 exit) | 1,001 |
| PV of terminal value | 621 |
| Implied enterprise value | 840 |
Illustrative figures
Also asked as
- Why do we use unlevered free cash flow in a standard DCF, and what discount rate must pair with it? What would change if we used levered free cash flow instead?
- A DCF's output is enterprise value. Walk through every adjustment needed to get from that number to an implied share price.
- Why does a DCF need a terminal value at all, and what are the two standard ways to calculate it?
- What are the main weaknesses of a DCF, and for what kinds of companies is it a poor primary methodology? Name at least two company types and explain why for each.
- Terminal value is typically 60–80% of enterprise value in a DCF. Why is that the case, and what does it imply about how you should present and sanity-check the analysis?
- How would you value a bank with a DCF? Explain why the standard unlevered approach fails and exactly what you would do instead.
- A company generates UFCF of $50M in Year 1, $60M in Year 2, and $70M in Year 3, with a terminal value of $900M at the end of Year 3. WACC is 10%. The company has $250M of net debt and 50M fully diluted shares. Calculate the implied share price, showing every discounting step.
- Your DCF implies $95 per share; the stock trades at $60. Your MD asks you to 'reverse the DCF.' Explain precisely what that means mechanically, then describe how you would isolate whether the gap comes from the market's implied terminal assumptions versus its implied near-term forecasts.
- You are valuing a company about to undergo an LBO that will take leverage from 1x to 7x EBITDA, deleveraging back to 3x over five years. Why is a single constant-WACC DCF conceptually wrong here, and walk through how APV would handle the valuation instead, including what gets discounted at which rate.
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Keep going
- Interest Expense and Unlevered FCF, Explained
- Explain why beta measures only systematic risk and not total risk. Why is that the economically correct thing for CAPM to price?
- Explain why the cost of debt is tax-affected but the cost of equity is not.
- Gordon Growth vs Exit Multiple, Explained
- Guide: the full IB Atlas guides library
The rest of this topic
The DCF: cash flow, discount rate, terminal value