On outstanding shares, and a warning about splits

'Outstanding' doesn't have its usual meaning here -- Every share issued (and not subsequently extinguished) by any company is an outstanding share of that company. In short, the phrase 'the number of outstanding shares' has, for all purposes, the same meaning as the phrase 'the number of shares'. This number is available from the latest Balance Sheet -- look at the schedule for the entry titled 'Share Capital' or some such. Be aware, however, that this number is invalidated by any action of the company, subsequent to the 'As At' date of the Balance Sheet, that changes the number of outstanding shares. Beware especially of share splits, since they would skew the numbers in a way which would fool someone depending on the Balance Sheet data to calculate per-share values. An easy (but perhaps not foolproof) way of finding if a split has happened after the date of the last Balance Sheet is to see if there has been an abrupt (as in Rs.100 to Rs.5 from one trading day to the next) fall in the price of the share -- a 20:1 split would cause the price to fall to approximately one-twentieth of its pre-split price. And if the researcher overlooks such a split, the post-split per-share ratios would look very attractive, since (s)he would then ascribe to a share the price of one share and the value of twenty!