Corporate Valuation Using the Free Cash Flow Method Applied to Coca-Cola

Book excerpt: The value of a corporation is the discounted present value of future cash flows provided by the company to the shareholders. The valuation process requires that the corporate financial decision maker determine the future free cash flow to equity, the short-term growth rate, the long-term growth rate, and the required rate of return based on market beta. This book provides a template for demonstrating corporate valuation using a real company—Coca-Cola. The data used in this book comes from the financial statements of Coca-Cola available on EDGAR. Other data are from SBBI, Yahoo! Finance, the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, Stocks, Bonds, Bills, and Infla-tion, Market Results for 1926–2010, 2011 Yearbook, Classic Edition, Morningstar, and US Department of the Treasury.