Leverage buyout’s is an opportunity for companies, who can strengthen its market position by expanding its operations, and it add’s value to the company. At every LBO, copmanies make different values of the target company to finally come upp to a final bid. The final bid may in many cases be made of a surplus value, which is the differens between the value of the net-assets and the final bid. This we call goodwill and it has been a target in many discussions. Goodwill is valued by a subjective judgment about how much you think the comapny will be able to generate in future synergies by a purchase of the target company. Today, there is no limit on how much goodwill company may disclose, which makes goodwill affect business in a more cunstructive way.

Problem: "How much of a company's total assets consist of goodwill, and how will the company be affected if you take away the goodwill as an asset"?

Purpose: The study aims to provide insight and understanding of goodwill. From different perspectives goodwill will be studied and described, about how this intangible asset affects companies.

Method: A comparative study has been carried out, where only written sources, secondary data have been used. A quantitative method has been chosen. The study aims to study and analyze the accounts from 15 different annual reports from 2007, and five of these more detailed. It’s the information from the annual reports that are the backbone of the study.

Conclusions: Risk measure, goodwill/equity, we believe show when a company should, write down the goodwill or increase equity. All the company's solvency affected dramatically when goodwill is eliminated, the majority of buisnesses lands on a negative equity ratio, which among other things makes outside founding diffucult. If campanies want the shareholders well and make accurate downs, even if it affect the outcome, a higher return on equity is a more legitimate measure and preferred.