Can Enterprise Value Be Negative? What About Equity Value?

In this tutorial, you’ll learn about whether or not Enterprise Value and Equity Value can be negative, the conditions that might cause them to be negative, and why negative values are quite rare in practice.
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Table of Contents:
2:34 Part 1: How Enterprise Value Can Be Negative
5:33 DCF Demonstration of Negative Enterprise Value
9:30 Part 2: How Implied Equity Value Can Be Negative
10:25 Part 3: The Qualifications and Fine Print for "Negative" Enterprise Values and Equity Values
11:44 Recap and Summary
Resources:
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Lesson Outline:
Yes, Enterprise Value can be negative… and Implied Equity Value can also be negative. BUT we need to be more precise with the terminology and qualify those statements a bit more.
Enterprise Value is the value of core-business Assets to all investors in the company.
Equity Value is the value of all the Assets, but only to common shareholders (equity investors).
And Equity or Shareholders’ Equity is a Balance Sheet figure that has no market value. Net Income, Dividends, and stock-related activities such as issuances and repurchases affect it.
“Current” refers to a company’s Equity Value or Enterprise Value based on its public share price, and it represents the market’s views of the company’s value.
“Implied” or “Intrinsic” refers to YOUR VIEWS of the company’s value.
Current Enterprise Value: Yes, it can be negative
Implied Enterprise Value: Yes, it can be negative
Current Equity Value: No, it can’t be negative (in theory)
Implied Equity Value: Yes, it can be negative
Equity or Shareholders’ Equity (Balance Sheet figure): Yes, it can be negative
How Enterprise Value Can Be Negative
Suppose a company has a market cap (Current Equity Value) of $30 million, no Debt, and Cash of $35 million. Its Enterprise Value is, therefore, negative $5 million.
The intuition is that the market expects the company’s core-business Assets to generate negative cash flow in the future, which makes them worth a negative amount.
If you buy the company, you have to contribute more cash over time to keep it running, so owning the company actually costs you something.
But even if its cash flow eventually turns positive, its Implied Enterprise Value could still be negative.
For example, if its Unlevered Free Cash Flows are very negative for the first ~10 years and turn slightly positive in the last 5 years, and in the Terminal Period beyond Year 15, everything is normal, the Implied EV from the DCF could still be negative, as it was here.
Money today is worth more than money tomorrow, so highly negative cash flows early on hurt us more than positive cash flows much further into the future.
Companies like Uber and Snap that keep growing and keep losing more and more money are dealing with this issue.
Current Equity Value cannot be negative, in theory, because it equals Share Price * Shares Outstanding, and both of those must be positive (or at least, greater than or equal to 0).
But Implied Equity Value could be negative for the same reasons as described above: It indicates that the market expects the company will keep burning through cash and that even if a turnaround happens, it may not be enough to justify that early burn.
Fine Print and Qualifications
While these scenarios are possible, they are pretty rare, and they tend not to last for very long.
A company with negative Enterprise Value will tend to turn around, as the market’s view of it shifts, or it will go bankrupt and die if the market’s view was correct.
A company shouldn’t be able to last that long if its core business is worthless!
Often, in real life, you’ll just say the company’s Implied Share Price is $0.00 if you get negatives in these calculations, and you’ll rely more on methodologies such as Liquidation Valuation for distressed companies.
Be wary of anyone who says a company with a negative Enterprise Value is a “bargain” - if you’re just a minority shareholder, that company is under no obligation to distribute cash to you.
So, yes, the company’s share price might be $5.00, and its Cash per Share might be $6.00. But that doesn’t mean much if the company plans to burn through all the cash and never let you have any!

[@simfinso858]

In India Government Running Landline Telephone companies are Examples for this video.They are not making a money still Government is Running them for a social pressure few Years Back.

[@mahmoudbadr9335]

At last slide you mentioned that we shouldn't use traditional valuation method when equity is negative, so how to value a company if it has negative equity?

[@financialmodeling]

Companies with negative equity are usually distressed, so methodologies like Liquidation Valuation might be more appropriate... or something like a DCF with heavy discounts applied to account for the distress.

[@suchismitguha2914]

I am valuing Tesla Inc. and in my financial model, the Implied Enterprise Value and Implied Equity Value turned out to be negative, in that case a implied share price of 0 is not worthy. What should I do?

[@financialmodeling]

Set the implied share price to 0 in that case.

[@lavishsingla4431]

when metrics values are -ve , how to know whether they are actually negative in real or there is requirement to change the method?

[@financialmodeling]

That's a really broad question that is difficult to answer in the short comments here. It depends completely on the metric and what it represents. Generally, if someone is buying or selling something (a stock, asset, etc.), its selling price cannot be negative, so $0 tends to be the minimum. But individual components of companies, assets, etc., may be negative.

[@VestusVim]

Shouldn't "Implied Equity Value" at 7:59 be called "Net Debt" instead, resulting in an implied equity value of -290.6 or am I getting it wrong?

[@financialmodeling]

Yes, the number shown at 7:59 was wrong but the Excel file has it correct. It is intended to be the Implied Equity Value (the calculation at 7:59 missed row 15 at the top).

[@vincentnguyen6833]

Hey good vid, i just had one question, i noticed that you explained what happened if implied EV is negative by doing the DCF, however i dont think you explained if current EV is negative: what does it mean when net debt exceeds MC, is the meaning the same for if implied EV is the same? That the business is generating negative cash flow in the future?

[@financialmodeling]

It means the business is likely to run out of cash and fail in the near future (in most cases). This is why negative Enterprise Value is probably most common for high-risk biotech companies.

[@abdulrahmany4315]

@@financialmodeling what if a company has a positive free cash flow for years and negative enterprise value ?

[@financialmodeling]

@@abdulrahmany4315 I would have to see the company to say. But this sounds like a very unusual scenario / something that might be explained by a one-off event such as a breakup or divestiture / spin-off.

[@lostmarxbro]

I was under the impression that there is still enough cash to cover the loses

[@financialmodeling]

It depends on the time frame you're using. The general assumption with negative TEV companies is that not only will they fail / be liquidated, but they'll also consume a lot of capital along the way before that happens. But there are exceptions.