In the last decade the strategic importance of intangible assets has increased, and it is now widely recognised that intangible assets represent more corporate value than tangible assets do, which alters the way debt security needs to be considered.
We recently conducted a study of all companies quoted on the world’s top 25 stock markets. This showed that the majority of corporate value is not reflected in conventional balance sheet reporting under the historical cost convention. The study revealed that unreported intangible assets represented 62% of \$31.6 trillion total enterprise value.
