Goodwill impairment assessments remain an area of limited focus for many private companies. Further, awareness of required trigger-based impairment testing is low. The confluence of these circumstances, as well as broad recoveries in many industries since the onset of the pandemic may mean that some will intentionally or unintentionally disregard the potential trigger-based impairment of goodwill.
The CPEA feels that this may lead to materially misstated financial statements, potentially indefinitely since goodwill is not amortized under the traditional models. These