Equity Value to Enterprise Value Bridge

How to Calculate Enterprise Value from Equity Value

The two primary methods to measure a company’s valuation are 1) enterprise value and 2) equity value.

• Enterprise Value (TEV) → The value of a company’s operations to all stakeholders, including common shareholders, preferred equity holders, and providers of debt financing.
• Equity Value → The total value of a company’s common shares outstanding to its equity holders. Often used interchangeably with the term “market capitalization”, the equity value measures the value of a company’s total common equity as of the latest market close and on a diluted basis.

The difference between enterprise value and equity value is contingent on the perspective of the practitioner performing the analysis, i.e. the company’s shares are worth different amounts to each investor group type.

The equity value, often referred to as the market capitalization (or “market cap” for short), represents the total value of a company’s total common shares outstanding.

To calculate the equity value, the company’s current price per share is multiplied by its total common shares outstanding, which must be calculated on a fully-diluted basis, meaning that potentially dilutive securities such as options, warrants, convertible debt, etc. should be taken into consideration.

In contrast, enterprise value represents the total value of a company’s core operations (i.e. the net operating assets) which also includes the value of other forms of investor capital such as financing from debt investors.

On the other hand, to calculate a company’s enterprise value, the starting point is the company’s equity value.

From there, the company’s net debt (i.e. total debt less cash), preferred stock, and non-controlling interest (i.e. minority interest) are added to the equity value.

The equity value represents the entire company’s value to only one subgroup of capital providers, i.e. the common shareholders, so we’re adding back the other non-equity claims since enterprise value is an all-inclusive metric.

However, a critical concept to understand is that the addition of new debt does NOT increase a company’s enterprise value.

The reason is newly raised capital via debt financing flows directly into the cash balance of the company, so the two offset each other, since net debt is the difference between total debt and cash.

What’s the Difference Between Equity Value and Enterprise Value?

To reiterate the key points mentioned in the prior section – enterprise value is the value of a company’s operations to all capital providers – e.g. debt lenders, common shareholders, preferred stockholders – which all hold claims on the company.

Unlike the enterprise value, the equity value represents the remaining value that belongs to solely common shareholders.

The enterprise value metric is capital structure neutral and indifferent to discretionary financing decisions, making it well-suited for purposes of relative valuation and comparisons among different companies.

For that reason, enterprise value is widely used in valuation multiples, whereas equity value multiples are used to a lesser extent.

The limitation of equity value multiples is that they are directly impacted by financing decisions, i.e. can be distorted by capital structure differences rather than operating performance.

Learn More → Enterprise Value Quick Primer

Equity Value to Enterprise Value Formula

The following formula is used to calculate equity value from enterprise value.

Equity Value to Enterprise Value Bridge Calculator

We’ll now move to a modeling exercise, which you can access by filling out the form below.

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Equity Value to Enterprise Value Bridge Calculation Example

Suppose a public company’s shares are currently trading at $20.00 per share in the open markets.

On a weighted average and diluted basis, the total number of common shares outstanding is 1 billion.

• Current Share Price = $20.00
• Total Common Shares Outstanding = 1 billion

Provided those two inputs, we can calculate the total equity value as $20 billion.

• Equity Value = $20.00 × 1 billion = $20 billion.

Starting from equity value, we’ll now calculate enterprise value.

The three adjustments consist of:

1. Cash and Cash Equivalents = $1 billion
2. Total Debt = $5 billion
3. Preferred Stock = $4 billion

The enterprise value of our hypothetical company amounts to $28 billion, which represents a net differential of $8 billion from the equity value.

• Enterprise Value = $20 billion – $1 billion + 5 billion + 4 billion = $28 billion

An illustration showing our equity value to enterprise value bridge from this example can be seen below.