how to find book value per share

For instance, banks or high-tech software companies often have very little tangible assets relative to their intellectual property and human capital (labor force). These intangibles would not always be factored in to a book value calculation. Book value per share is the portion of a company’s equity that’s attributed to each share of common stock if the company gets liquidated. It’s a measure of what shareholders would theoretically get if they sold all of the assets of the company and paid off all of its liabilities. Market capitalisation is the product between the total number of outstanding shares of an organisation and its current market price. Measuring the Value of a ClaimA good measure of the value of a stockholder’s residual claim at any given point in time is the book value of equity per share (BVPS).

What Does Book Value Per Share (BVPS) Tell Investors?

By multiplying the diluted share count of 1.4bn by the corresponding share price for the year, we can calculate the market capitalization for each year. The book value of equity (BVE) is the value of a company’s assets, as if all its assets were hypothetically liquidated to pay off its liabilities. The figure of 1.25 indicates that the market has priced shares at a premium to the book value of a share. There is also a book value used by accountants to value the assets owned by a company. This differs from the book value for investors because it is only used internally for managerial accounting purposes.

Book Value Per Share Formula (BVPS)

The market value of a company is based on the current stock market price and how many shares are outstanding. Price-to-Book ratio or PB ratio is a common financial indicator for helping investors determine the company’s worth. Investors can use the PB ratio to evaluate if a stock is overpriced or undervalued to its book value. For investors looking for stocks that are trading below their actual value, it’s a useful tool. There are many methods that investors can use to evaluate the value of a company. By leveraging useful and insightful formulas such as a company’s Book Value Per Share, investors can determine a company’s value relative to its current market price.

How to Increase Book Value Per Share

Adam received his master’s in economics from The New School for Social Research and his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in sociology. He is a CFA charterholder as well as holding FINRA Series 7, 55 & 63 licenses. He currently researches and teaches economic sociology and the social studies of finance at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. If a company is selling 15% below book value, but it takes several years for the price to catch up, then you might have been better off with a 5% bond. Market value is the worth of a company based on the perceived worth by the market.

Book Value: Definition, Meaning, Formula, and Examples

  • Equity investors often compare BVPS to the market price of the stock in the form of the market price/BVPS ratio to attribute a measure of relative value to the shares.
  • The difference between a company’s total assets and total liabilities is its net asset value, or the value remaining for equity shareholders.
  • While this dip in earnings may drop the value of the company in the short term, it creates long-term book value because the company’s equipment is worth more and the costs have already been discounted.
  • Specifically, an investor will need total asset value, cost of acquiring an asset, and accumulated depreciation of corporate assets which helps provide the most accurate BVPS figure.

The book value per share would still be $1 even though the company’s assets have increased in value. Now, let’s say that XYZ Company has total equity of $500,000 and 2,000,000 shares outstanding. In this case, each share of stock would be worth $0.50 if the company got liquidated. If a company’s BVPS is higher than its market value per share (the current stock price), the stock may be considered undervalued. This situation suggests a potential buying opportunity, as the market may be undervaluing the company’s actual worth. The company generates $500,000 in earnings and uses $200,000 of the profits to buy assets, its common equity increases along with BVPS.

This tells you something about book value as well as the character of the company and its management. You won’t get this information from the P/B ratio, but it is one of the main benefits of digging into the book value numbers and is well worth the time. In this case, the value of the assets should be reduced by the size of any secured loans tied to them. An investor looking to make a book value play has to be aware of any claims on the assets, especially if the company is a bankruptcy candidate.

The book value per share (BVPS) ratio compares the equity held by common stockholders to the total number of outstanding shares. To put it simply, this calculates a company’s invoice definition per-share total assets less total liabilities. To get BVPS, you divide the figure for total common shareholders’ equity by the total number of outstanding common shares.

how to find book value per share

A company’s stock buybacks decrease the book value and total common share count. Stock repurchases occur at current stock prices, which can result in a significant reduction in a company’s book value per common share. Commonly used by stock investors and analysts, the Book Value Per Share (BVPS) metric looks at a company’s stock price to determine whether it’s undervalued compared to the stock’s current market price.