Share capital
The sum of the par values of all issued shares: a legal figure recorded in the articles, not a market valuation of the business.
How to read the number
It acts as a floor under the company's own funds. Statute ties both the right to distribute profit and the duty to reduce capital to how net assets compare with it.
When the metric lies
It is not market capitalisation. A large company may carry a token share capital unchanged for years while its market value is repriced every day.
Also known as: charter capital