Which financial statement tells the value of a business ?

A value of a business need be appraised based on the information generated internally and externally.  You can get inferences from Company Balance Sheet, income statements, statement of Cash flow, statement of Owner's equity and in addition from Audit reports. Externally also information may collected to have a best judgement on the fair value.

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For Banks, since they need to fair value most of their assets and liabilities, the Balance sheet tells you the value of a business,

For generic business, you need to look at either the cash flow statement and determine the Free cash flows and try to estimate the future free cash flows which then discounted to present value gives the value of the business. Alternatively, you can look at he Income statement and the operating profit and EPS will also help you determine the value of the business by applying a Price to earning ratio or a EV to Operating profit ratio.

Non of the financial statement can tell the exact value of business. Balance sheet, income statement, statement of cash flow can only help to evaluate the value of business.

Balance sheet( statement of financial position)

statement of financial  position.

Balance Sheet And Income Statement After Audit. 

Balance Sheet will have enough information to determine the value

In Financial Statements includes Balance Sheet, Profit & Loss Account, Cash Flow Statement, Statement of Changes in Equity & Explanatory Notes. Out of these5 points Profit & Loss Accounts tells the value of a business

Balance Sheet tells the value of business and income statment shows the performance of business

None of the financial statements will report the value of a business. The main financial statements (balance sheet, income statement, statement of cash flows, statement of stockholders' equity) may provide some helpful partial information, but they will not report the value of the business. Two reasons why the value of a business is not included in the financial statements are:

• The financial statements are generally based on the company's past recorded transactions. The value of the business will more likely be based on the perceived future transactions.
• The accountants' cost principle prohibits a business from reporting some highly-valued assets such as trademarks, brand names, and an effective management team (assuming these were developed internally).

A contemporary example which demonstrates that the financial statements do not reflect the value of a business is a startup company with a promising future. We may have read that a venture capitalist (VC) invested $ million in a startup. Based on that investment the startup is assumed to have a total value of $ million. Well the startup's financial statements will not report amounts anywhere near $ million. Realistically the financial statements will be reporting negative earnings, few assets and little stockholders' equity. The company's value came from the VC's perception of the company's new breakthrough system that is projected to generate amazing future revenues with a limited amount of expenses. In short, the financial statements provide only some of the information needed when attempting to determine the value of a business.

Statement of Affairs of company or Balance Sheet