A measure of a company's value as a whole. Enterprise value reflects a company's economic at a point in time, irrespective of how it is financed, typically based on an analysis of a company's earnings or EBITDA multiplied by an appropriate multiple (usually determined based on the company's industry).

In an acquisition context, a buyer can use enterprise value to determine the transaction price. Enterprise value is often considered to provide a more accurate takeover valuation because it includes the target's debt in its calculation, and therefore reflects the total cost to the buyer of the acquisition. Once enterprise value is established, it can be allocated to the claims on that value by the company's shareholders and debt providers to arrive at an equity value for the company.

Enterprise value can be expressed formulaically as the company’s equity value plus its total net debt (being the company's long and short-term debt and debt like instruments minus its cash and cash equivalents).