Aa Aa 7. The relationship between the book value of shareholders' equity and the firm's Market Value Added (MVA) and Economic Value Added (EVA) Yesterday, Atherton Corp. released its 2015 annual report on the company's website. While reading the report for his boss, Tristan came across several terms about which he was unsure. He leaned around the wall of his cubicle and asked his colleague, Annie, for help. Tristan Annie, do you have a second to help me with my reading of Atherton's annual report? I've come across several unfamiliar terms, and I want to make sure that I'm interpreting the data and management's comments correctly For example, one of the footnotes to the financial statements uses "the book value of Atherton's shares," and then in another place, it uses "Economic Value Added." I've never encountered those terms before. Do you know what they're talking about? Annie Yes, I do. Let's see if we can make these terms make sense by talking through their meaning and their significance to investors The term book value has several uses. It can refer to a single asset or the company as a whole. When referring to an individual asset, such as a piece of equipment, book value refers to the asset's or amortization expense. The and its accumulated depreciation expense, is called its book value adjusted for any accumulated depreciation value, or difference between the machine's historical cost In contrast, when the term refers to the entire company, it means the total value of the company's as reported in the firm's Tristan That makes sense. So, what makes this value important to investors is that it is value that can change-but only due to a couple of events, including the of Treasury stock, the sale of new common or preferred shares, and the payment change in response to changes in the market Equally important, it prices of the firm's shares Annie Right! So, how useful would a firm's book value be for assessing the performance of Atherton's management