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Company A has 10M shares at 10 bucks, the market cap is 100M. With 0 debt and cash, EV is also 100M.
Company B has 10M shares at 5 bucks with 50M in debt. Market cap is 50M but EV, the total cost of the company is 100M same as Company A.
Company C has 10M shares at 20 bucks with 100M in cash. 200M market cap but a 100M EV because you have to subtract the cash from the market cap to come up with true price of the company.
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this isn't quite how it works. you can't just add debt and market cap and get the "EV" of the company - the more leveraged the company is, the more incorrect this becomes.
think of the stock as a call option on the company's net worth, where the strike price is the company's total debt. if the company's total value drops below the total debt and the company goes into bankruptcy, the "option" expires worthless.
company B in your example has a 50M market cap and 50M in debt. by owning shares your downside is limited to the first 50M - if the value drops below 50M you can't lose any more. but your potential for upside is big, as you mentioned.
a call option whose underlying stock is trading slightly above the strike price will actually be worth much more than the stock price minus the strike price. the same concept applies to leveraged companies.
using your pricing method, the cash rich companies will seem undervalued relative to the leveraged companies - but that's because it undervalues the leveraged companies.
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In the OP, "EV" meant Enterprise Value
EV - Enterprise Value
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i wasn't aware of this term, but that doesn't change my argument. the enterprise value is still a poor measure of "true price" for the reasons i mentioned.