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Shareholders' equity (or Stockholders' equity, Shareholders' Funds, Shareholders' capital employed) is ownership equity spread out among shareholders whose class of share may have special rights attached to it. If all shareholders are in one and the same class, they share equally in ownership equity from all perspectives.

In business accounting, it is the owners' interest in the assets of the enterprise after deducting all its liabilities.^[1] appears on the Balance Sheet, one of three Financial Statements. The book value of equity will increase if the firm's assets increase more than its liabilities. For example, a firm making profits, receives more cash for its products than the cost at which it produced these goods, and so in the act of making a profit it is increasing its assets. Also, an issuance of new equity in which the firm obtains new capital increases the total shareholders' equity. Equity will decrease, for example, when machinery depreciates, which is registered as a decline in the value of the asset, and on the liabilities side of the firm's balance sheet as a decrease in shareholders' equity.

Another event that changes the shareholders' equity is an equity repurchase, in which a firm gives back money to its investors, reducing on the asset side its financial assets, and on the liability side the shareholders' equity. For practical purposes (except for its tax consequences), share repurchasing is similar to a dividend payment, as both consist of the firm giving money back to investors. Rather than giving money to all shareholders immediately in the form of a dividend payment, a share repurchase reduces the number of shares (increases the size of each share) in future income and distributions.

Dividends paid out to Preferred share owners are considered an expense to be subtracted from Net Income^{[citation needed]}(from the point of view of the common share owners).

Assets and liabilities can change without any effect being measured in the Income Statement under certain circumstances; for example, changes in accounting rules may be applied retroactively. Sometimes assets bought and held in other countries get translated back into the reporting currency at different exchange rates, resulting in a changed value.

The individual investor is interested not only in the total changes to equity, but also in the increase/decrease in the value of his own personal share of the equity. This reconciliation of equity should be done both in total and on a 'per share' basis.

• Equity (beg. of year)
• + net income
• − dividends
• +/− gain/loss from changes to the number of shares outstanding.
• = Equity (end of year)

Accounts listed under shareholders' equity include (example):

• preferred stock
• share capital, common stock
• Capital surplus
• Stock options
• Retained earnings
• Treasury stock
• Reserve (Accounting)

• Ownership equity

• Shareholders' Funds on Reuters Financial Glossary

1. ^ IFRS Framework quotation: International Accounting Standards Board F.49(c)