You would need a mechanism to extract that value- i.e. the ability to strip the company apart for parts. Buying a non-controlling portion of shares doesn't give you that ability.
Indeed. The decision-making apparatus is sometimes so starkly separated from the stakeholders that there's no reason to believe that the balance sheet and the stock price are likely to be correlated at all in the future. If the company doesn't pay dividends, and can't be sold off for its assets, then what is the function of equity?
I find Wall St. baffling for all the usual reasons, but this one is too rarely discussed.
