Wide-moat Paychex reported strong fiscal third-quarter results that were in line with our expectations. The company continued to benefit from robust client retention and margin expansion despite headwinds in Florida’s professional employer organization segment. Paychex’s $4.1 billion acquisition of Paycor is on track and expected to close next quarter. We have made slight adjustments accounting for updated guidance, while our longer-term revenue growth and operating margin expansion estimates are unchanged. As a result, we maintain our $130 fair value estimate and view the shares as slightly overvalued after the postearnings pop in the stock price.
Show me how fair value is derived (00:41)
Morningstar calculates the fair value estimate of a company based on a projection of how much cash the company will generate in the future. Morningstar analysts create custom industry and company assumptions to feed income statement, balance sheet, and capital investment assumptions into a proprietary discounted cash flow modeling template. Scenario analysis, in-depth competitive advantage analysis, and a variety of other analytical tools are used to augment the discounted cash flow process. The analyst discounts future cash flows using the weighted average of the costs of equity, debt, and preferred stock (and any other funding sources), using expected future proportionate long-term, market-value weights.
The Morningstar Fair Value Estimate is a projection/opinion and not a statement of fact. If Morningstar's base-case assumptions are true the market price will converge on Morningstar's fair value estimate over time, generally within three years. Investments in securities are subject to market and other risks. Past performance of a security may or may not be sustained in the future and is no indication of future performance.