Category: Accounting

The End of Accounting and the Beginning of Intangibles Accounting

I’ve been discussing The End of Accounting with a lot of people but hadn’t gotten around to reviewing it here. I definitely recommend it as a fresh take on the intangibles problem and a sobering view of the challenges facing accountants today.

Baruch Lev has been talking about intangibles about as long as anyone. I often quote this quick video that we recorded of Dr. Lev at an intangibles conference we organized in DC in 2011 where he say that intangibles are “the only assets that create value.” His logic is that tangible assets are commodities available to everyone. The only alternative is the development of intangible assets. Continue reading “The End of Accounting and the Beginning of Intangibles Accounting”

Corporate Value Drivers –  Closing the Intangible Information Gap

Ocean Tomom Intangibles in S&P 500

The intangibles information gap isn’t going away. In fact, it keeps growing. It’s the undercurrent of a lot of conversations about corporate value drivers, integrated reporting and even ESG.  So I figured it was time to review the latest data. Continue reading “Corporate Value Drivers –  Closing the Intangible Information Gap”

Value Creation vs. Valuation – An Integrated View

I spend a lot of time talking about where the value lies in businesses. One reason is the influence of the first half of my career in high risk corporate lending. It leads me to tie what I see back to financial value. The other reason is the shifts that have occurred during my career in our overall economy.  As we laid out in Intangible Capital, the shift to a knowledge-based economy has dramatically changed the sources of value in business. And it has increased the awareness of the external costs of corporate actions.

These shifts are easy to illustrate by comparing and contrasting the concepts of value creation and valuation. Continue reading “Value Creation vs. Valuation – An Integrated View”