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Book Value Per Share Calculator

Find a company's book value per share.

How it is calculated

The tool computes BVPS = (equity − preferred) / shares. Equity is total shareholders' equity from the balance sheet, which is total assets minus total liabilities. Preferred is the book value of preferred stock, taken out because preferred holders rank ahead of common holders. Shares is the number of common shares outstanding. Equity and preferred are in the same currency; the answer is shown in dollar format per share.

Leave preferred empty and it counts as zero. Shares must be greater than zero. Equity can be negative, which gives a negative book value per share, for example equity of −200,000 over 100,000 shares gives −2.00. Book value comes from historical accounting figures, so it is not the same as market price or fair value.

Worked example

Total equity 5,000,000, preferred stock 500,000 and 1,000,000 common shares outstanding. Remove preferred: 5,000,000 − 500,000 = 4,500,000 left for common holders. Divide by shares: 4,500,000 / 1,000,000 = $4.50 per share. If the stock trades at 9.00, the price-to-book ratio is 9.00 / 4.50 = 2.

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Common mistakes

  • Forgetting to subtract preferred equity when the company has preferred stock. The result then overstates what belongs to common holders.
  • Using the total number of authorised shares or including treasury shares. Use shares outstanding.
  • Entering equity in thousands or millions but shares in single units. Both must be in matching scale, or the result is off by a factor of 1,000 or more.
  • Entering total assets instead of equity. Liabilities must already be subtracted.
  • Reading book value as what a share is worth. Intangible assets, brand value and growth are not fully on the balance sheet, so the market price can be far from BVPS.

Sources

About this calculator

This calculator computes book value per share, BVPS = (total shareholder equity − preferred equity) / shares outstanding, which represents the net asset value attributable to each common share if the company were liquidated at its balance-sheet values. It's an accounting-based measure, distinct from market price, and the price-to-book (P/B) ratio compares the two.

Value investors, following the tradition of Benjamin Graham, use BVPS to screen for stocks trading below their net asset value, while equity analysts use it to assess whether a stock's market price is supported by tangible balance-sheet worth, especially for banks and asset-heavy industrials.

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Comments (1)

  • Editorial team

    BVPS is an accounting figure from the balance sheet, so it is most useful beside the market price: divide the share price by the result to get the price-to-book ratio. The tool does not remove goodwill or other intangibles, and it returns a negative value when equity is negative, which flags a company whose liabilities exceed its assets. Which adjustments, such as tangible book value, would you want to see here?

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