Marine harvest group : strategisk regnskapsanalyse og verdivurdering

2017

The purpose of this master’s thesis is to conduct a valuation of the common stockholder

equity in Marine Harvest on December 31, 2016. The valuation will be based on a

fundamental valuation, supplemented by a method of comparables. In the fundamental

valuation we have identified the underlying economic conditions of Marine Harvest, in order

to forecast the pro forma financial statement. The discounted cash flows are then used to

provide an estimated value. In the method of comparables we have used the method of

multiples to provide a supplementary valuation.

To provide the reader with the insight required for the thesis, we start with a presentation of

the fish farming industry and Marine Harvest. The first part of the fundamental valuation is a

strategic analysis of Marine Harvest. Using the PESTEL analysis and Porter's five forces, we

reveal opportunities and threats to the fish farming industry. We use the SVIMA framework

to conduct an analysis of the resources of Marine Harvest. The results of the strategic analysis

are used to identify the sources of the historical strategic advantage of 13.3%.

In Chapters 9 and 10, we forecast the pro forma financial statement based on the normalized

financial statements from the accounting analysis. Our calculations give Marine Harvest a

future strategic advantage of 6.9%. We then prepared value estimates using the equity

method, the capital employed method and the net operating requirement method. After a

convergence of the value estimates and an analysis of uncertainty, we concluded with an

estimated value of 130,053 NOK per share. Our final estimate using the method of

comparables was NOK 154.26 per share.

By weighting the fundamental value estimate by 70% and the comparative value estimate by

30%, we concluded with a final value estimate of 137.32 NOK per share and thus a sell

recommendation.