(Smart Money) — Determining the price of a publicly traded company seems simple enough. Multiply the stock price by the number of outstanding shares. Google (GOOG: 486.25, -2.31, -0.47%) costs about $156 billion. Verizon (VZ: 29.06, -0.02, -0.06%) goes for around $83 billion. However, companies aren’t like cans of peas. They have something called a capital structure, which can make the true cost of owning them, free and clear, differ sharply from the sticker price. Verizon owes billions. Add the cost of repaying that debt to the stock price and the result is an “enterprise value,” or true purchase price, of $140 billion.
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