[dragonwriter]

Most company have intangible assets and/or liabilities whose valuation is less-than-concrete that aren't traditionally reflected on a balance sheet except when they are given a concrete valuation as "goodwill" in the event of acquisition of the company.

These assets and liabilities exist all the time, though. In the case of a publicly traded company where the market cap is substantially less than the book value -- concrete assets less concrete liabilities -- there is a judgement that these fuzzy assets and liabilities aggregate to a net liability. That's a sign of perceived distress, but not really rare.

Its even less rare for a company to be valued less than its (concrete) assets -- this is fairly normal. That just means that the net positive goodwill is less than concrete liabilities.