I guess I was curious at what the quarterly reports of a grocery chain looked like, so I looked up the ticker symbol SVU, which is basically a company that runs grocery stores. When I was reading their 10-Q, I saw this paragraph: "The Company applies a fair value based impairment test to the net book value of goodwill and intangible assets with indefinite useful lives on an annual basis and on an interim basis if certain events or circumstances indicate that an impairment loss may have occurred. For the second quarter of fiscal 2011 the Companyâs stock price had a significant and sustained decline and book value per share substantially exceeded the stock price. As a result, the Company performed an interim impairment test of goodwill and intangible assets with indefinite useful lives as of the end of the second quarter of fiscal 2011. Although this analysis had not been completed due to its complexity, the Company recorded a preliminary estimate of impairment charges in the second quarter of fiscal 2011 of $1,600, comprised of $1,450 to goodwill and $150 to intangible assets with indefinite useful lives. In the third quarter of fiscal 2011, the Company finalized the impairment analysis and recorded additional impairment charges of $240, comprised of $169 to goodwill and $71 to intangible assets with indefinite useful lives. The impairment of goodwill and indefinite-lived intangible assets reflects the ..." Can someone help explain to me what they are trying to say? Investopedia has an article here that sort of helps. http://www.investopedia.com/articles/analyst/110502.asp#axzz1V3bv6qCF My understanding: so what happened here is that the company owned some sort of brand name or intellectual property that "seemed" (?) overvalued relative to the stock share price, so they put it into the record that they were writing a huge decrease in value into the books so investors would have a more fair assessment of goodwill? Is that right? Thanks.