Market value added (MVA) is the difference between the current

market value Market value or OMV (Open Market Valuation) is the price at which an asset would trade in a competitive auction setting. Market value is often used interchangeably with ''open market value'', '' fair value'' or ''fair market value'', although th ...

of a firm and the

capital Capital may refer to: Common uses * Capital city, a municipality of primary status ** List of national capital cities * Capital letter, an upper-case letter Economics and social sciences * Capital (economics), the durable produced goods used fo ...

contributed by

investor An investor is a person who allocates financial capital with the expectation of a future return (profit) or to gain an advantage (interest). Through this allocated capital most of the time the investor purchases some species of property. Type ...

s. If MVA is positive, the firm has added value. If it is negative, the firm has destroyed value. The amount of value added needs to be greater so than the firm's investors could have achieved investing in the market portfolio, adjusted for the leverage (

beta coefficient In finance, the beta (β or market beta or beta coefficient) is a measure of how an individual asset moves (on average) when the overall stock market increases or decreases. Thus, beta is a useful measure of the contribution of an individual ...

) of the firm relative to the market.

Basic formula

The formula for MVA is: :

MVA = V - K

where: * ''MVA'' is market value added * ''V'' is the market value of the firm, including the value of the firm's

equity Equity may refer to: Finance, accounting and ownership *Equity (finance), ownership of assets that have liabilities attached to them ** Stock, equity based on original contributions of cash or other value to a business ** Home equity, the diff ...

and

debt Debt is an obligation that requires one party, the debtor, to pay money or other agreed-upon value to another party, the creditor. Debt is a deferred payment, or series of payments, which differentiates it from an immediate purchase. The ...

* ''K'' is the capital invested in the firm MVA is the present value of a series of EVA values. MVA is economically equivalent to the traditional NPV measure of worth for evaluating an after-tax cash flow profile of a project if the

cost of capital In economics and accounting, the cost of capital is the cost of a company's funds (both debt and equity), or from an investor's point of view is "the required rate of return on a portfolio company's existing securities". It is used to evaluate ne ...

is used for discounting.

References

* G. Bennett Stewart III, ''The Quest for Value'' (HarperCollins, 1991). Financial markets Fundamental analysis {{econ-stub