핵심무형자산의 개념과 측정 및 보고

초록

Although SK Biopharmaceuticals which recently listed on the KOSPI market (February 2, 2020) had a net asset of -77.2 billion Korean won, the firm’s market capitalization on the listing date reached about 10 trillion Korean won. As this case indicates, under financial reporting following the current accounting standards, the informativeness of financial statements has been significantly decreasing because the gap between firms’ market values and book values is ever widening and the current financial reporting fails to satisfy demands by information users. This stems from the fact that the current financial reporting cannot provide useful information about intangible assets which are key elements of firms’ competitive power. This study first examines limitations of the current financial reporting that is unable to appropriately report the value of intangible assets. And the study attempts to introduce a new concept of intangible assets named ‘Core Intangible Assets’ which can overcome the limitations. The core intangible assets represent crucial intangible elements of firms’ assets that enable the firms to sustainably generate excess earnings from the central operating activities and that can influence information users’ decision making if the information related to the assets are omitted or misstated. By properly reporting the value of the core intangible assets in the financial statements, this study intends to help the information users’ decision making. To do this, the study suggests (1) how to identify core intangible assets which can create firms’ main intangible values, (2) how to measure and report the present value of future economic benefits in monetary unit that the core intangible assets will generate, and (3) how to incorporate information about the core intangible assets into a main body of financial statements or how to report the information in the separate statements. This study is a pioneering study to introduce the concept of core intangible assets and to present ways how to identify, measure and report them. The study can be useful guidance for discussions on the financial reporting improvement plans for intangible assets in the future.

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