In the good old days, banks used to apply Net Debt-to-Equity as...

In the good old days, banks used to apply Net Debt-to-Equity as one of their lending metrics. Indirectly, this involved Intangibles, given Intangibles formed part of Shareholder Equity. (In fact, this was the classical form of what was then termed "gearing", whereas today that term is applied often to Net Debt-to-EBITDA).

But Debt-to-Equity proved to be a poor financial liquidity and solvency guide (for the very reason that the Equity line proved to be rather rubbery and subject to asset write-downs). Accordingly, commercial lenders became more sophisticated and moved away from asset-backed lending (apart for commercial and industrial real estate, of course, where the assets were capable of being monetised for sums very close to their carrying values in the accounts of companies), to earnings- and cash-flow based indicators, which are far more commonplace today.

But no self-respecting bank would lend money nowadays predicated on what someone tells them is their deemed value of Intangible assets.

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