Warner Bros discovery stock is an incredible investing opportunity, but there is one problem 40B dollars of debt.
Warner Bros Discovery stock is down 65% since it was listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange in 2022. I have been a shareholder of WBD since the listing because I got some shares as an AT&T investor, but since then I have only added to my position since the stock was under 12$.
Why the stock is down and what types of investors
There are two reasons why the stock is down so much. The first problem is debt, I will address this later in the article. Secondly, the type of investors who became shareholders through AT&T are generally those who invest for dividends. Since WBD does not offer any dividends, many of these investors sold their shares.
Buissnies segments
The business is divided into three segments: Studios, Networks, and DTC. The Studios segment primarily produces and releases feature films, television programs, and interactive gaming. The Networks segment consists of domestic and international television networks. Lastly, the DTC segment includes premium pay TV and streaming services.
Debt
One major risk associated with WBD is its debt. However, the company has made significant progress in paying off its debt since the spin-off, paying off about 5.4 billion dollars in 2023 and reducing its gross debt to 44.2 billion dollars from 49.5 billion dollars at the end of 2022.
Also, 100% of the debt is a fixed average rate of 4.6%.
Valuation
If you buy Wbd today at a price of around 8.5$ you get an almost 30% free cash flow yield compared to the 2.7% FCF yield that S&P 500 offers.
For my DCF analysis, I made 3 scenarios in all three my required rate of return was 10%. When I weighed all three scenarios (normal case 60%, best case 20%, and worst case 20%) I got an average valuation of 29,85$ per share, but as I said Wbd has a lot of debt so I need to deduct net debt form the valuation, but even after accounting for all the debt I get an Intrnisci value of 13,50$ per share.
Assumptions and margin of safety
Because there are a lot of assumptions being made in the analysis I always add a margin of safety in the end, to protect myself from any mistakes made in the valuation. I used a Margin of safety of 20% and the stock is still undervalued.
Conclusion
Warner Bros Discovery stock is dirt cheap, that's why I will contuniue to slowny increase my postiton in Wbd.