Desi Bites goes public

Every post so far has used Desi Bites Foods Pvt Ltd — a private company, with no share price at all. That changes here. Shortly after FY25 closed, Desi Bites converted to a public limited company and listed on the main board of the NSE and BSE on 15 June 2025, as Desi Bites Foods Ltd. It raised fresh growth capital through an IPO (initial public offering — the first time a company sells shares to the public), issuing 2.5 lakh new shares at an IPO price of ₹640, on top of the 10 lakh shares that already existed. That’s a fictional event, invented for this series — but it’s what makes the valuation posts that follow possible, since valuation ratios need a share price to work with.

What book value per share means

Book value per share (BVPS) is the simplest of the valuation-adjacent ratios, because it doesn’t need a share price at all — just the balance sheet and the share count. It answers: if the company sold every asset at its accounting value and paid off every liability, how much would be left over for each share?

The formula

Book Value per Share = Total Equity / Shares Outstanding

Worked example: Desi Bites Foods Ltd, post-IPO

   
Post-IPO Equity (₹ Lakh) 2,278
Post-IPO Shares Outstanding (Lakh) 12.5
Book Value per Share ₹182.24

Post-IPO equity is the FY25 closing equity (₹678 lakh) plus the ₹1,600 lakh raised in the fresh issue (ignoring issue expenses) — the company’s own accounting net worth grew the moment it took in fresh shareholder capital.

Worked example: Britannia Industries, FY25

From Britannia Industries’ audited consolidated FY25 results (year ended 31 March 2025, filed 8 May 2025). Shares outstanding here (24.09 crore) is derived from reported EPS and PAT, and matches the reported equity share capital at a face value of ₹1 — a consistency check, not a separate estimate. For illustration only.

   
Total Equity, owners (₹ Crore) 4,355.72
Shares Outstanding (Crore) 24.09
Book Value per Share ₹180.81

Genuinely a coincidence, not a designed one — Desi Bites’ and Britannia’s book values per share land in a similar range (₹182.24 and ₹180.81) despite the two companies being wildly different in scale. Book value per share depends entirely on how many shares exist, which has nothing to do with how big or valuable a company actually is — a reminder for the very first common mistake below.

Common mistakes

  • Confusing book value with market value. BVPS is an accounting number, not what the market thinks the company is worth. The gap between the two is exactly what P/B (the price-to-book ratio), a few posts from now, measures.
  • Not adjusting for share count changes. A stock split doubles the share count and halves BVPS overnight, without changing anything real about the business — BVPS is only comparable across time if the share count is stable, or you adjust for splits.
  • Ignoring what isn’t on the balance sheet. A strong consumer brand, distribution reach, or customer loyalty — the things that actually make a company like Britannia valuable — mostly don’t show up in book value at all. BVPS undersells genuinely brand-driven businesses by design.
  • Assuming rising BVPS is automatically bullish. It usually just means retained profit is piling up — whether that profit is being reinvested well is a completely separate question BVPS can’t answer on its own.

Takeaway: book value per share is what each share is worth on the accounting books alone. It’s a useful reference point, but on its own it says nothing about what the market is willing to pay — that’s where the valuation posts go next.