Shareholders' equity
Shareholders' equity is what would be left for the owners if every asset were realised at the value the accounts carry it at and every debt were repaid. It is also called book value, net worth or stockholders' equity.
How it is computed here
| Formula | total assets − total liabilities |
|---|---|
| Unit | Currency amount |
| Period | One fiscal year, as reported |
| Source | Extracted from SEC filings; every value on an asset page carries the accounting tag and the filing it came from |
| Identifier | patrimonio_liquido |
What goes into the formula
| Total assets | Everything the company controls, at carrying value. |
|---|---|
| Total liabilities | Everything it owes: debt, suppliers, pensions, deferred tax, lease obligations. |
| What is inside the result | Money originally paid in by shareholders, plus every year's retained profit, minus every dividend ever paid and every share ever bought back. |
A formula without its inputs explained is decoration. Where an input is missing from a filing, the metric is left empty here rather than completed with a zero or an estimate.
How to calculate shareholders' equity, step by step
Working out equity three ways from the same balance sheet.
| Total assets | $6,000M |
|---|---|
| Total liabilities | $4,000M |
| Paid-in capital | $500M |
| Retained earnings | $4,500M |
| Treasury stock (shares bought back) | −$3,000M |
- From the two totals: 6,000 − 4,000 = $2,000M.
- From the components: 500 + 4,500 − 3,000 = $2,000M.
- The two agree, which is the arithmetic check.
- Note the third line: $3,000M of buybacks has already been taken out of equity.
Result: $2,000M of book value
Keep buying back stock and that treasury line grows until it swallows the rest. Several of the largest American companies report NEGATIVE equity for exactly this reason, with nothing wrong.
The figures in this example are illustrative and rounded — they are not a real company. The real figures on this site are the live ones below and on every asset page, each carrying the filing it came from.
What shareholders' equity is good for
Equity is the denominator of return on equity and of net debt to equity, and it is the anchor of the balance sheet identity that this site verifies on every company. It is also the closest thing in a filing to an answer to 'what is this company worth on paper'.
What this number does not tell you
Equity is a BOOK value, not a market value, and the gap between them is usually enormous — this is the single most common misreading of the figure. Anyone searching for a company's 'net worth' and landing here should know that the number below is what the accounts say, not what the market would pay: the market value depends on the share price, and there is no price anywhere on this site. Equity can also go negative after years of buybacks without the company being in any distress at all. Book value can go below zero, and often does. Of the 5,531 companies here reporting an equity balance, 961 — close to one in six — report it negative in their most recent filing. Years of accumulated losses do it, and so do buybacks funded with debt: both reduce book equity without saying anything about what the business is worth. Negative equity is a statement about the accounts, not a verdict on the company.
Every metric on this site is published with its blind spot stated. A figure without its limit is half a fact.
Highest reported shareholders' equity
| BRK-ABERKSHIRE HATHAWAY INC | $717.4B |
|---|---|
| BRK-BBERKSHIRE HATHAWAY INC | $717.4B |
| MSFTMICROSOFT CORP | $442.4B |
| GOOGAlphabet Inc. | $415.3B |
| GOOGLAlphabet Inc. | $415.3B |
| AMZNAMAZON COM INC | $411.1B |
| JPMJPMORGAN CHASE & CO | $362.4B |
| BACBANK OF AMERICA CORP | $303.2B |
From the most recent fiscal year of each company. Only companies reporting in US dollars are ranked here — a figure in yen or won is not larger, it is in another currency.
See it in a published filing
These pages show the figure across up to nineteen fiscal years, with the accounting tag and the filing behind every value.