The literature review of the relevance of the goodwill on M&A: Practical case AB InBev

Details

Supervisors

Thewissen, James

Faculty

Louvain School of Management

Degree label

Master [120] en sciences de gestion, à finalité spécialisée

Abstract

This dissertation is done in order to obtain the master’s degree in Management Sciences at the Louvain School of Management. In order to do so, I followed a major in Corporate Finance at Louvain-la-Neuve during my master's degree. The choice of the subject of my thesis comes from the difficulty I had during my bachelor's degree to deal with the asset of goodwill. I wanted to develop my knowledge on this subject by looking at the different debates and controversies due to its treatment. As you will see from the literature, the accounting and treatment of goodwill is the subject of much debate. Accountants, authors, regulators ... cannot agree on a single treatment of goodwill. The objective of my dissertation is to be able, after analyzing the two accounting treatments (amortization and impairment) based on the goodwill of the acquisition of SABMiller by AB InBev, to issue a recommendation on the most favorable treatment of goodwill for the company. While reading this dissertation, you will gain a deeper understanding of the various controversies, practices and standards regarding the accounting and treatment of goodwill. I have faced some limitations in completing my dissertation. The main difficulty was the lack of information on the exact composition of goodwill, executive compensation, and negative goodwill.