Enterprise value

Last updated December 07, 2024

Enterprise value (EV), total enterprise value (TEV), or firm value (FV) is an economic measure reflecting the market value of a business (i.e. as distinct from market price). It is a sum of claims by all claimants: creditors (secured and unsecured) and shareholders (preferred and common). Enterprise value is one of the fundamental metrics used in business valuation, financial analysis, accounting, portfolio analysis, and risk analysis.

Enterprise value is more comprehensive than market capitalization, which only reflects common equity.^[1] Importantly, EV reflects the opportunistic nature of business and may change substantially over time because of both external and internal conditions. Therefore, financial analysts often use a comfortable range of EV in their calculations.

EV equation

For detailed information on the valuation process see Valuation (finance).

Enterprise value =

common equity at market value (this line item is also known as "market cap")

+ debt at market value (here debt refers to interest-bearing liabilities, both long-term and short-term)

+ preferred equity at market value

+ unfunded pension liabilities and other debt-deemed provisions

– value of associate companies

– cash and cash equivalents.

Understanding

A simplified way to understand the EV concept is to envision purchasing an entire business. If you settle with all the security holders, you pay EV. Counterintuitively, increases or decreases in enterprise value do not necessarily correspond to "value creation" or "value destruction". Any acquisition of assets (whether paid for in cash or through share issues) will increase EV, whether or not those assets are productive. Similarly, reductions in capital intensity (for example by reducing working capital) will reduce EV.

EV can be negative if the company, for example, holds abnormally high amounts of cash that are not reflected in the market value of the stock and total capitalization.^[2]

All the components are relevant in liquidation analysis, since using absolute priority in bankruptcy all securities senior to the equity have par claims. Generally, also, debt is less liquid than equity, so the "market price" may be significantly different from the price at which an entire debt issue could be purchased. In valuing equities, this approach is more conservative than using the "market price".

Cash is subtracted because it reduces the net cost to a potential purchaser. The effect applies whether the cash is used to issue dividends or to pay down debt.

Value of minority interest is added because it reflects the claim on assets consolidated into the firm in question.

Value of associate companies is subtracted because it reflects the claim on assets consolidated into other firms.

EV should also include such special components as unfunded pension liabilities, employee stock options, environmental provisions, abandonment provisions, and so on since they also reflect claims on the company.

There are certain limitations and traps in using enterprise value. One of which can be a simplified aggregation of company's financial situation. One unit of additional debt may not be of same importance as additional one unit of missing cash.^[3]

It can be demonstrated that enterprise value depends on the probability of default (the rating) and works as a "negative growth rate" in the future.^[4]

Usage

Because EV is a capital structure-neutral metric, it is useful when comparing companies with diverse capital structures. Price/earnings ratios, for example, will be significantly more volatile in companies that are highly leveraged.
Stock market investors use EV/EBITDA to compare returns between equivalent companies on a risk-adjusted basis. They can then superimpose their own choice of debt levels. In practice, equity investors may have difficulty accurately assessing EV if they do not have access to the market quotations of the company debt. It is not sufficient to substitute the book value of the debt because a) the market interest rates may have changed, and b) the market's perception of the risk of the loan may have changed since the debt was issued. Remember, the point of EV is to neutralize the different risks, and costs of different capital structures.
Buyers of controlling interests in a business use EV to compare returns between businesses, as above. They also use the EV valuation (or a debt free cash free valuation) to determine how much to pay for the whole entity (not just the equity) since the change of control may require debt repayment. They may also want to change the capital structure once in control.

Technical considerations

Data availability

Unlike market capitalization, where both the market price and the outstanding number of shares in issue are readily available and easy to find, it is virtually impossible to calculate an EV without making a number of adjustments to published data, including often subjective estimations of value:

The vast majority of corporate debt is not publicly traded. Most corporate debt is in the form of bank financing, finance leases and other forms of debt for which there is no market price.
Associates and minority interests are stated at historical book values in the accounts, which may be very different from their market values.
Unfunded pension liabilities rely on a variety of actuarial assumptions and represent an estimate of the outstanding liability, not a true “market” value.
Public data for certain key inputs of EV, such as cash balances, debt levels and provisions are only published infrequently (often only once a year in the annual report & accounts of the company).
Published accounts are only disclosed weeks or months after the year-end date, meaning that the information disclosed is already out of date.

In practice, EV calculations rely on reasonable estimates of the market value of these components. For example, in many professional valuations:

Unfunded pension liabilities are valued at face value as set out in notes to the latest available accounts.
Debt that is not publicly traded is usually taken at face value, unless the company is highly geared (in which case a more sophisticated analysis is required).
Associates & minority interests are usually valued either at book value or as a multiple of their earnings.

Avoiding temporal mismatches

When using valuation multiples such as EV/EBITDA and EV/EBIT, the numerator should correspond to the denominator. In other words, the profitability metric in the denominator should be available to all stakeholders represented in the numerator. The EV should, therefore, correspond to the market value of the assets that were used to generate the profits in question, excluding assets acquired (and including assets disposed) during a different financial reporting period. This requires restating EV for any mergers and acquisitions (whether paid in cash or equity), significant capital investments or significant changes in working capital occurring after or during the reporting period being examined. Ideally, multiples should be calculated using the market value of the weighted average capital employed of the company during the comparable financial period.

When calculating multiples over different time periods (e.g. historic multiples vs forward multiples), EV should be adjusted to reflect the weighted average invested capital of the company in each period.^{[note 1]}

Notes

↑ This is analogous to the way earnings per share (net income / weighted average number of shares) is influenced by changes in the number of shares over different financial years.

Related Research Articles

The discounted cash flow (DCF) analysis, in financial analysis, is a method used to value a security, project, company, or asset, that incorporates the time value of money. Discounted cash flow analysis is widely used in investment finance, real estate development, corporate financial management, and patent valuation. Used in industry as early as the 1700s or 1800s, it was widely discussed in financial economics in the 1960s, and U.S. courts began employing the concept in the 1980s and 1990s.

Fundamental analysis, in accounting and finance, is the analysis of a business's financial statements ; health; competitors and markets. It also considers the overall state of the economy and factors including interest rates, production, earnings, employment, GDP, housing, manufacturing and management. There are two basic approaches that can be used: bottom up analysis and top down analysis. These terms are used to distinguish such analysis from other types of investment analysis, such as quantitative and technical.

Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) are business transactions in which the ownership of companies, business organizations, or their operating units are transferred to or consolidated with another company or business organization. This could happen through direct absorption, a merger, a tender offer or a hostile takeover. As an aspect of strategic management, M&A can allow enterprises to grow or downsize, and change the nature of their business or competitive position.

Market capitalization, sometimes referred to as market cap, is the total value of a publicly traded company's outstanding common shares owned by stockholders.

Investment is traditionally defined as the "commitment of resources to achieve later benefits". If an investment involves money, then it can be defined as a "commitment of money to receive more money later". From a broader viewpoint, an investment can be defined as "to tailor the pattern of expenditure and receipt of resources to optimise the desirable patterns of these flows". When expenditures and receipts are defined in terms of money, then the net monetary receipt in a time period is termed cash flow, while money received in a series of several time periods is termed cash flow stream.

In finance, equity is an ownership interest in property that may be offset by debts or other liabilities. Equity is measured for accounting purposes by subtracting liabilities from the value of the assets owned. For example, if someone owns a car worth $24,000 and owes $10,000 on the loan used to buy the car, the difference of $14,000 is equity. Equity can apply to a single asset, such as a car or house, or to an entire business. A business that needs to start up or expand its operations can sell its equity in order to raise cash that does not have to be repaid on a set schedule.

In financial accounting, a balance sheet is a summary of the financial balances of an individual or organization, whether it be a sole proprietorship, a business partnership, a corporation, private limited company or other organization such as government or not-for-profit entity. Assets, liabilities and ownership equity are listed as of a specific date, such as the end of its financial year. A balance sheet is often described as a "snapshot of a company's financial condition". It is the summary of each and every financial statement of an organization.

The price–earnings ratio, also known as P/E ratio, P/E, or PER, is the ratio of a company's share (stock) price to the company's earnings per share. The ratio is used for valuing companies and to find out whether they are overvalued or undervalued.

The weighted average cost of capital (WACC) is the rate that a company is expected to pay on average to all its security holders to finance its assets. The WACC is commonly referred to as the firm's cost of capital. Importantly, it is dictated by the external market and not by management. The WACC represents the minimum return that a company must earn on an existing asset base to satisfy its creditors, owners, and other providers of capital, or they will invest elsewhere.

In accounting, as part of financial statements analysis, economic value added is an estimate of a firm's economic profit, or the value created in excess of the required return of the company's shareholders. EVA is the net profit less the capital charge ($) for raising the firm's capital. The idea is that value is created when the return on the firm's economic capital employed exceeds the cost of that capital. This amount can be determined by making adjustments to GAAP accounting. There are potentially over 160 adjustments but in practice, only several key ones are made, depending on the company and its industry.

In accounting, book value is the value of an asset according to its balance sheet account balance. For assets, the value is based on the original cost of the asset less any depreciation, amortization or impairment costs made against the asset. Traditionally, a company's book value is its total assets minus intangible assets and liabilities. However, in practice, depending on the source of the calculation, book value may variably include goodwill, intangible assets, or both. The value inherent in its workforce, part of the intellectual capital of a company, is always ignored. When intangible assets and goodwill are explicitly excluded, the metric is often specified to be tangible book value.

In finance, valuation is the process of determining the value of a (potential) investment, asset, or security. Generally, there are three approaches taken, namely discounted cashflow valuation, relative valuation, and contingent claim valuation.

A treasury stock or reacquired stock is stock which is bought back by the issuing company, reducing the amount of outstanding stock on the open market.

Stock valuation is the method of calculating theoretical values of companies and their stocks. The main use of these methods is to predict future market prices, or more generally, potential market prices, and thus to profit from price movement – stocks that are judged undervalued are bought, while stocks that are judged overvalued are sold, in the expectation that undervalued stocks will overall rise in value, while overvalued stocks will generally decrease in value. A target price is a price at which an analyst believes a stock to be fairly valued relative to its projected and historical earnings.

Business valuation is a process and a set of procedures used to estimate the economic value of an owner's interest in a business. Here various valuation techniques are used by financial market participants to determine the price they are willing to pay or receive to effect a sale of the business. In addition to estimating the selling price of a business, the same valuation tools are often used by business appraisers to resolve disputes related to estate and gift taxation, divorce litigation, allocate business purchase price among business assets, establish a formula for estimating the value of partners' ownership interest for buy-sell agreements, and many other business and legal purposes such as in shareholders deadlock, divorce litigation and estate contest.

Valuation using discounted cash flows is a method of estimating the current value of a company based on projected future cash flows adjusted for the time value of money. The cash flows are made up of those within the “explicit” forecast period, together with a continuing or terminal value that represents the cash flow stream after the forecast period. In several contexts, DCF valuation is referred to as the "income approach".

In economics, valuation using multiples, or "relative valuation", is a process that consists of:

The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to finance:

A financial ratio or accounting ratio states the relative magnitude of two selected numerical values taken from an enterprise's financial statements. Often used in accounting, there are many standard ratios used to try to evaluate the overall financial condition of a corporation or other organization. Financial ratios may be used by managers within a firm, by current and potential shareholders (owners) of a firm, and by a firm's creditors. Financial analysts use financial ratios to compare the strengths and weaknesses in various companies. If shares in a company are publicly listed, the market price of the shares is used in certain financial ratios.

Corporate finance is the area of finance that deals with the sources of funding, and the capital structure of businesses, the actions that managers take to increase the value of the firm to the shareholders, and the tools and analysis used to allocate financial resources. The primary goal of corporate finance is to maximize or increase shareholder value.

References

↑ Definition of 'Enterprise Value - EV'
↑ Cheapest Stocks Since 1995 Show Cash Exceeds Market (Update5)
↑ "What is enterprise value (EV)". Archived from the original on 2021-08-01. Retrieved 2021-02-15.
↑ Gleißner, Werner. "Kapitalmarktorientierte Unternehmensbewertung: Erkenntnisse der empirischen Kapitalmarktforschung und alternative Bewertungsmethoden". Corporate Finance: 158.

External links

Investopedia Video: Introduction To Enterprise Value

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.

[5] This is analogous to the way earnings per share (net income / weighted average number of shares) is influenced by changes in the number of shares over different financial years.

[1] Definition of 'Enterprise Value - EV'

[2] Cheapest Stocks Since 1995 Show Cash Exceeds Market (Update5)

[3] "What is enterprise value (EV)". Archived from the original on 2021-08-01. Retrieved 2021-02-15.

[4] Gleißner, Werner. "Kapitalmarktorientierte Unternehmensbewertung: Erkenntnisse der empirischen Kapitalmarktforschung und alternative Bewertungsmethoden". Corporate Finance: 158.

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[note 1]