Research On Goodwill Impairment Of Listed Companies In Successive Mergers And Acquisitions

With the development and changes in China’s economic market,the Chinese government has introduced a series of policies in the area of M&A and restructuring.Many companies choose to adapt to the market through M&A in order to expand their market share and enhance their core competitiveness.However,some companies also choose to make consecutive mergers and acquisitions in a short period of time and pay excessive premiums,resulting in a significant increase in goodwill.At the same time,these companies did not make reasonable provision for goodwill impairment in the first place,leading to goodwill impairment problems.This caused a series of difficulties for these companies and negatively impacted the subsequent development of the companies.This study adopts literature research method as well as the combination of empirical analysis method and case study method,firstly,it analyzes the current situation and future trend of mergers and acquisitions of listed companies in China,the analysis of goodwill impairment problem brought by continuous mergers and acquisitions of listed companies in China,secondly,it analyzes the mechanism of goodwill impairment generated by continuous mergers and acquisitions,the mechanism of goodwill impairment mainly lies in the company’s over-valuation of the subject company leading to the premium of mergers and acquisitions,the subject enterprise’s performance commitment does not meet the standard,the enterprise should disclose and reasonably extract goodwill at the end of the enterprise,and the enterprise has surplus management motive,and based on the theoretical analysis,this paper selects 166 A-share listed companies’ M&A transactions that occurred and traded successfully in 2022 as the research sample,and sets up a multiple linear regression model for empirical analysis.Finally,through the literature study on the impairment of goodwill in consecutive mergers and acquisitions of listed companies,we specifically analyze the situation of consecutive mergers and acquisitions of Meridian Health and its goodwill impairment problem,mainly including the basic introduction of Meridian Health,the formation status of consecutive mergers and acquisitions and goodwill in recent years,goodwill impairment and the countermeasures the company should take when facing goodwill impairment and other related situations.This paper puts forward corresponding suggestions for listed companies to reasonably avoid the occurrence of goodwill impairment,suggesting that companies should strengthen the process of evaluating the value of underlying enterprises,improve performance commitment agreements,strengthen goodwill impairment information disclosure and timely goodwill impairment accrual,and strengthen the supervision of enterprises by internal and external regulatory authorities.It is hoped that domestic listed companies can learn from and adopt the relevant recommendations to reduce the negative impact of goodwill impairment on the company in a reasonable manner,promote sound operation of the company and thus promote the steady development of various industries.