Investment Thesis for PepsiCo, Inc. (NYSE: PEP)
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Date
2017-06
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Institute for Applied Economics, Global Health, and the Study of Business Enterprise
Abstract
PepsiCo, Inc. (NYSE: PEP) is a global food and beverages company, most commonly known by its famous brands such as Pepsi-Cola and Frito-Lay. Using historical performance data, we have determined through a Probabilistic Discounted Cash Flow (P-DCF) analysis and Monte Carlo simulations that the company is fundamentally worth $81.25/share. Despite PepsiCo’s cost-cutting efforts and reorientation of business to accommodate the shift of consumer preferences towards healthier and more eco-friendly food, the macroeconomic and political instability in PepsiCo’s emerging market segments, as well as the company’s high debt levels lead us to conclude that PepsiCo does not have the revenue generating potential to justify the current market price. For all the reasons above, we rate PepsiCo a SELL.
Description
The Studies in Applied Finance series is under the general direction of Prof. Steve H. Hanke, Co-Director of the Johns Hopkins Institute for Applied Economics, Global Health, and Study of Business Enterprise (hanke@jhu.edu) and Dr. Hesam Motlagh (hesamnmotlagh@gmail.com), a Fellow at the Johns Hopkins Institute for Applied Economics, Global Health, and Study of Business Enterprise.
This working paper is one in a series on applied financial economics, which focuses on company valuations. The authors are mainly students at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore who have conducted their work at the Institute as undergraduate researchers.
Keywords
finance, investment thesis, PepsiCo, financial modeling, discounted cash flow, free cash flow, Monte-Carlo simulation, management compensation