On 1 January 2005, IFRS (International Financial Reporting Standards)was mandatory for all listed companies within the European Union. The introduction is to create a transparent and consistent reporting. Mainly to provide companies, investors and financiers the same access to world capital markets. Since the introduction of IFRS, the goodwill value is determined by annual impairment tests. If an impairment of goodwill is a fact the goodwill decreases in value. The value of goodwill should be allocated to cash generating units or groups of cash generating units expected to benefit from goodwill, that is, achieve future positive payment surplus.

The purpose of this study is to investigate whether goodwill impairment in Swedish listed companies is reflected in equity returns and to investigate in which quarter impairment is recognized and published.

All companies listed on the Stockholm´s Large, Mid and Small Cap lists in 2011 were examined and goodwill impairment of the listed companies was studied over a five year period between years 2007 – 2011. A. Craig MacKinlays standard in event studies was used, where the cumulative average abnormal return (CAAR) was calculated to further carry out a hypothesis testing.

The study shows an average reduction in yield of 1, 49 percent, but no statistically significant association between goodwill impairment and stock returns was found. The study also shows that goodwill impairment most frequently is published in the first quarter and that it is reported in the fourth quarter of previous year.