Mechanics of FCFF calculation

[wstguest]

Full Question:
I have just started to learn how to calculate FCFF and have an obvious “newbie” question - Can the FCFF be calculated for the current quarter, or past year, without estimating forward? Simply put, is it logical and/or accepted industry practice to look at the current, or past FCFFs, or is it only used (useful) for estimating forward? And as a follow-up, if you can calculate the FCFF for the current quarter, or past year, how do you handle “Net Working Capital”? In my FCFF estimates for future years, I am using the current year’s working capital as a percent of revenue and applying this to my incremental revenue estimates for each year going out. If I were to apply the same approach to the current quarter, or past year, how would I do it? Do you simply take the incremental change in the “Working Capital” from the current quarter vs. previous quarter, or current year vs. previous year? Any input would be greatly appreciated. I hope my questions make sense to the experts, but as I said, I am a “freshman” at equity valuation.

[wstexpert]

Yes, FCFF can be calculated for any time period. however, for purposes of DCF, you would want to calculate projected FCFF. Note that you don't necessarily have to have a complete financial model to do so - you can still estimate it by assuming growth rates on last known historical figures.

There are several ways to estimate NWC: (i) % of revenue; (ii) % of YoY revenue change; (iii) flat assumption if fairly stable historically; (iv) change in 30/60 days expenses (COGS+SG&A)