What does Book Value Share means in finance

Book Value Per Share (BV / Share) is a financial ratio used to assess the amount of Book Value which 1 share of the company will give you exposure to. For example, if a company has Book Value of $100mm and currently has 50 million shares outstanding, BV / Share is 100,000,000 / 50,000,000 = $2.0. Essentially, this tells a potential investor what claim on the Book Value of a company they would have by purchasing 1 share of the company.

On its own, this is not used too commonly when valuing companies, but it is an important precursor to a very important ratio, P / BV.