Intangible asset

An intangible asset is a non-monetary, non-physical asset with identifiable economic value: brands, customer relationships, technology, patents, software, licences, know-how, trade names, non-compete agreements. Under IFRS 3, acquired intangible assets must be separately recognised in a PPA if they meet separability or contractual-legal criteria and their fair value can be reliably measured. In intangible asset valuation, the principal methods are relief from royalty (for brands and technology), multi-period excess earnings (for customer relationships) and cost approach (for assembled workforce).

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Example: the acquisition of a Swiss medtech company for CHF 40.0 million triggers a PPA identifying three separate intangible assets: developed technology valued at CHF 8.5 million (relief from royalty, 5% royalty rate), customer relationships at CHF 4.2 million (MPEEM method) and backlog at CHF 1.1 million. The residual goodwill of CHF 14.8 million represents synergies and assembled value not attributable to specific identified assets.

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Hectelion provides intangible asset valuations for IFRS 3 PPA, fiscal and litigation purposes, applying IVSC-compliant methods for each asset class.