Apparently it was commonly a scam in accounting scandals in 2002 and now there are more rigorous tests for it: http://www.investopedia.com/terms/g/goodwill-imp

Apparently it was commonly a scam in accounting scandals in 2002 and now there are more rigorous tests for it: http://www.investopedia.com/terms/g/goodwill-impairment.asp http://www.investopedia.com/terms/g/goodwill-impairment.asp Goodwill is the value of intangible assets -- name recognition, customer relations, intellectual property, etc. Impairment is a reduction in that stated asset due to overpayment, negative publicity harming relations, etc. So by impairing the total paid, they are essentially saying what they paid for was worthless, and by impairing more than it is worth is saying it damaged their brand significantly in addition to being worthless. It sounds like a difficult argument to make. Impairment on the total cost, maybe since the closing up the devices has made it last instead of first on most people's 3D-printers-to-get list. More than what they paid for it does seem like a scam -- I wonder if they have already justified it successfully? Does anyone know? EDIT: I see skybrian's reply. Good catch. So the goodwill had increased in value temporarily and then decreased to essentially zero. Is that all of the goodwill of the whole stratasys company? Are they now saying "we have no IP/brand recognition/etc"? If so, that still sounds almost as sketchy for tax accounting as saying the MakerBot acquisition significantly damaged their own brand.