That the objective of financial reporting is to provide useful information for decision making is not only well known, it has long been the stated basic objective of accounting standard setters around the world. Similarly, there is broad agreement about what in financial terms is meant by the term ‘material’. It is therefore at least curious that, as Bloom (2009) notes, accounting standard setters devote only one accounting standard to goodwill. This standard has remained substantially unchanged in its simplistic discussion of both measurement and disclosure requirements for goodwill for some thirty years.