Last November, the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) voted to retain the impairment-only approach to goodwill accounting. The IASB did not discuss whether the impairment-only model or the amortization model was conceptually superior, but whether there was compelling evidence to justify switching from one model to the other.

Twenty years ago, the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) and the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) changed goodwill accounting, which is still hotly debated today. When determining the value of a company, the question inevitably arises as to what makes one company more valuable than another. This question also speaks about the importance of determining the value of the company by appraisal, but also about the need to respect the market position of the company in the valuation process, because the market must in any case be an arbiter in determining the real value of the company.