Untangling Intangibles
Many companies use intangible assets such as patents, licenses, computer software, branding, and reputation to earn revenues. These intangible assets have always been part of the economic landscape. We study the impact of intangibles on our ability to identify differences in expected stock returns in US, developed ex US, and emerging markets and find no tangible performance benefits from adjusting for intangibles.
It is important to begin by distinguishing between two types of intangible assets. Under US generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP), externally acquired intangibles are reported on the balance sheet. They currently represent about a quarter of the reported value of assets for the average US company. These assets are accounted for when computing book equity. Internally developed intangibles, on the other hand, are generally not capitalized on the balance sheet. Instead, the costs associated with those intangibles are expensed and thus reflected on the income statement. The difference in accounting treatment is primarily due to the higher uncertainty around the potential of internally developed intangibles to provide future benefits and the difficulty to identify and objectively measure such benefits.1 After all, internally developed intangibles do not go through a market assessment, while externally acquired intangibles get evaluated in the competitive market for mergers and acquisitions, and at that time, they might already be generating tangible benefits for the company that developed them. For example, Disney bought the Star Wars franchise, an externally acquired intangible, in 2012, many years after the franchise began generating economic benefits for Lucasfilm.
Some argue that to more effectively infer differences in expected returns across firms sourcing most of their intangibles externally and firms sourcing them internally, we should capitalize internally developed intangibles. Several academic studies do that by accumulating the historical spending on research and development (R&D, to capture the development of “knowledge capital”) and selling, general, and administrative expenses (SG&A, to capture the development of “organizational capital”). In the present study, we follow the approach suggested by Peters and Taylor (2017)2 and find that while intangible assets comprise more of companies’ assets over time, this stems mainly from growth in externally acquired intangibles. Estimated internally developed intangibles have not meaningfully increased as a proportion of total assets (see Exhibit 1).
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Robert J. Pyle, CFP®, CFA is president of Diversified Asset Management, Inc. (DAMI). DAMI is registered as an investment adviser with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) with its primary place of business in the state of Colorado. DAMI will only transact business in other states to the extent DAMI has made the requisite notice filings or obtained the necessary licensing in such state. No follow up or individualized responses to persons in other jurisdictions that involve either rendering or attempting to render personalized investment advice for compensation will be made absent compliance with applicable legal requirements, or an applicable exemption or exclusion. References to registration with the SEC do not imply any endorsement or approval of the qualifications of the firm, nor do they imply that the firm’s representatives have attained a particular level of skill or training. To contact Robert, call 303-440-2906 or e-mail info@diversifiedassetmanagement.com.
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