finance Finance refers to monetary resources and to the study and Academic discipline, discipline of money, currency, assets and Liability (financial accounting), liabilities. As a subject of study, is a field of Business administration, Business Admin ...

and

accounting Accounting, also known as accountancy, is the process of recording and processing information about economic entity, economic entities, such as businesses and corporations. Accounting measures the results of an organization's economic activit ...

, par value means stated value or

face value The face value, sometimes called nominal value, is the value of a coin, bond, stamp or paper money as printed on the coin, stamp or bill itself by the issuing authority. The face value of coins, stamps, or bill is usually its legal value. Ho ...

of a

financial instrument Financial instruments are monetary contracts between parties. They can be created, traded, modified and settled. They can be cash (currency), evidence of an ownership, interest in an entity or a contractual right to receive or deliver in the form ...

. Expressions derived from this term include at par (at the par value), over par (over par value) and under par (under par value).

Bonds

A bond selling at par is priced at 100% of face value. Par can also refer to a bond's original issue value or its value upon redemption at maturity.

Stock

The par value of

stock Stocks (also capital stock, or sometimes interchangeably, shares) consist of all the Share (finance), shares by which ownership of a corporation or company is divided. A single share of the stock means fractional ownership of the corporatio ...

has no relation to market value and, as a concept, is somewhat archaic. The par value of a share is the value stated in the corporate charter below which shares of that class cannot be sold upon initial offering; the issuing company promises not to issue further shares below par value, so investors can be confident that no one else will receive a more favorable issue price. Thus, par value is the nominal value of a security which is determined by the issuing company to be its minimum price. This was far more important in unregulated equity markets than in the regulated markets that exist today, where stock issuance prices must usually be published. The par value of stock remains unchanged in a bonus stock issue but it changes in a

stock split A stock split or stock divide increases the number of shares in a company. For example, after a 2-for-1 split, each investor will own double the number of shares, and each share will be worth half as much. A stock split causes a decrease of mar ...

. In accounting, the par value allows the company to put a

de minimis ''De minimis'' is a legal doctrine by which a court refuses to consider trifling matters. The name of the doctrine is a Latin expression meaning "pertaining to minimal things" or "with trifles", normally in the terms ("The praetor does not conce ...

value for the stock on the company's financial statement. Par value is also used to calculate

legal capital A corporation's share capital, commonly referred to as capital stock in the United States, is the portion of a corporation's Shareholders' equity, equity that has been derived by the issue of Share (finance), shares in the corporation to a sha ...

share capital A corporation's share capital, commonly referred to as capital stock in the United States, is the portion of a corporation's equity that has been derived by the issue of shares in the corporation to a shareholder, usually for cash. ''Share ...

. Many

common stock Common stock is a form of corporate equity ownership, a type of security. The terms voting share and ordinary share are also used frequently outside of the United States. They are known as equity shares or ordinary shares in the UK and other C ...

s issued today do not have par values; those that do (usually only in jurisdictions where par values are required by law) have extremely low par values (often the smallest unit of currency in circulation), for example a penny (

USD The United States dollar (symbol: $; currency code: USD) is the official currency of the United States and several other countries. The Coinage Act of 1792 introduced the U.S. dollar at par with the Spanish silver dollar, divided it int ...

$0.01) par value on a stock issued at

$25.00/share. Most jurisdictions do not allow a company to issue stock below par value. Even in jurisdictions that permit the issue of stock with no par value, the par value of a stock may affect its tax treatment. For example, Delaware permits the issue of stock either with or without a par value, but by choosing to assign a par value, a corporation may significantly reduce its franchise tax liability.

No-par stock No-par stock is stock issued with no par value given in the articles of incorporation or stock certificate. This is in contrast to stocks issued with a par value - a value for which the stock is redeemable to the issuing company - set at the time of ...

s have "no par value" printed on their certificates. Instead of par value, some U.S. states allow no-par stocks to have a stated value, set by the board of directors of the corporation, which serves the same purpose as par value in setting the minimum legal capital that the corporation must have after paying any dividends or buying back its stock. Also, par value still matters for a

callable common stock A callable bond (also called redeemable bond) is a type of bond ( debt security) that allows the issuer of the bond to retain the privilege of redeeming the bond at some point before the bond reaches its date of maturity. In other words, on the ca ...

: the call price is usually either par value or a small fixed percentage over par value. The shares in a corporation may be issued

partly paid A partly paid share is a share in a company which has only partial been paid compared to the par value, with the understanding that as the company requires more funds, calls will be made from time to time to request more money until the shares are ...

, which renders the owner of those shares liability to the corporation for any calls on those shares up to the par value of the shares.

Currency

The term "at par" is also used when two currencies are exchanged at equal value (for instance, in 1964,

Trinidad and Tobago Trinidad and Tobago, officially the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, is the southernmost island country in the Caribbean, comprising the main islands of Trinidad and Tobago, along with several List of islands of Trinidad and Tobago, smaller i ...

switched from the

British West Indies dollar The British West Indies dollar (BWI$) was the currency of British Guiana and the Eastern Caribbean territories of the British West Indies from 1949 to 1965, when it was largely replaced by the East Caribbean dollar, and was one of the currencies u ...

to the new

Trinidad and Tobago dollar The Trinidad and Tobago dollar ( currency code TTD) is the currency of Trinidad and Tobago. It is normally abbreviated with the dollar sign $, or alternatively TT$ to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies. It is subdivided int ...

, and that switch was "at par", meaning that the

Central Bank of Trinidad and Tobago The Central Bank of Trinidad and Tobago is the central bank of Trinidad and Tobago. The Central Bank of Trinidad and Tobago is located in the Eric Williams Financial Complex. The complex consists of the central bank auditorium and two sky-scrap ...

replaced each old dollar with a new one). Par value also refers to the official gold content of a currency. The Act to Amend the Par Value Modification Act of 1973 of September 21, 1973 lowered the par value of the dollar against gold from $38 to $42.2222 where it remains today. This is why the face value of a 1 oz gold coin is $50, reflecting the par value of the dollar in gold.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Par Value Valuation (finance) Bond valuation

Bonds

Stock

Currency

See also

References