The Macerich Company (MAC) — Valuation Snapshot

The Macerich Company (MAC) is a real-estate investment trust, and a free-cash-flow discounted-cash-flow (DCF) model is structurally the wrong lens for one. A REIT's reported free cash flow is swamped by property depreciation and the continuous capital spending that maintaining a portfolio requires, which is why the industry is valued on funds from operations (FFO/AFFO), net asset value and dividend yield instead. We have the data to print a DCF number for MAC; we don't publish one because it would not mean what it appears to mean. What follows is how a REIT is actually read — descriptive, not a valuation, and not investment advice.

On the numbers we do have, MAC trades at a recent price of $25.29, a market capitalisation of about $7,462,002,176, sitting 87% of the way up its 52-week range ($16.03–$26.68), on the NYSE.

The standard alternative to a DCF is relative valuation — comparing MAC's trading multiples against a sector benchmark. Here that gives Fwd P/E of 205.1× (richer than the peer median of 36.2×); P/B of 2.6× (cheaper than the peer median of 7.2×); P/S of 7.2× (cheaper than the peer median of 10.3×); EV/EBITDA of 22.6× (richer than the peer median of 19.9×); Dividend yield of 2.7% (richer than the peer median of 3.8%). A cheaper multiple than peers can flag a discount or a market that expects weaker growth; it is a comparison, not a recommendation.

The asset, or book-value, lens is the classic tool for asset-heavy businesses and financials. MAC shows a price-to-book (P/B) of 2.64 and book value of $9.59 per share. Price-to-book compares the market price to the accounting net-asset value per share; below 1.0 can mean a discount to net assets or that the market is pricing in trouble — descriptive either way, never a buy signal on its own.

Finally, a price-based read — explicitly not a valuation. MAC is in an up-trend (price above both its 50- and 200-day averages), trading -5.2% from its 52-week high. Over the past year the stock is +38.9%. Moving-average trend and 52-week position describe where the stock has traded; they say nothing about what it is worth.

To be exact about what this page is not: we are not saying the numbers for MAC are unavailable. They are, and they are above. We are saying a discounted-cash-flow model is the wrong instrument for this kind of business, and publishing one anyway — because the inputs happen to exist — would be a precise answer to the wrong question. Refusing is the more useful answer, and it is the same rule we apply to every name in this category.