Putting Brand on the Balance Sheet: How Do We Measure Brand Value - and Can We Trust It?

Join BVIUK's Expert Member David Haigh from Brand Finance for a BV Academy session exploring one of the most important questions facing valuation and financial reporting: how should businesses account for the growing value of brands and other internally generated intangible assets?

Brands, intellectual property, data, technology and other intangibles increasingly drive enterprise value, yet much of this value remains absent from company balance sheets. This creates a growing gap between the economic value of a business and the assets recognised under current financial reporting standards.

Drawing on his extensive experience in brand valuation, David will examine how brands and other intangible assets can be valued reliably, the methodologies used in practice, and the challenges involved in producing robust, consistent and credible valuations.

The session will explore:

The growing importance of intangible assets in driving enterprise value

Why many economically valuable, internally generated intangible assets remain unrecognised on the balance sheet

Established approaches to valuing brands and other intangibles, and the challenges involved

The case for and against recognising internally generated intangible assets in financial reporting

Whether greater recognition would provide investors and other stakeholders with more decision-useful information

Whether accounting standards need to evolve to better reflect an increasingly intangible-led economy

The presentation will be followed by an opportunity for questions and discussion with David.

BV Academy | Online via Zoom

30 September 2026 | 6:00 pm UK time

2 CPD credits

About the Instructor:

David Haigh is the CEO and founder of Brand Finance Plc. He has worked in the area of branded business, brand, and intangible asset valuation since 1991. He specialised entirely in the field after becoming the Director of Brand Valuation for Interbrand in 1995. He subsequently left Interbrand in 1996 to launch Brand Finance.

David is a passionate writer and has authored many articles for the marketing and financial press on nation branding and brand valuation, published in numerous newspapers and magazines, such as: Financial Times, Accountancy Age, and Marketing Week. He has also lectured on the topic of brand valuation for Harvard, Chicago, and London Business Schools.

David graduated from Bristol University with an English degree, qualified as a Chartered Accountant with Price Waterhouse in London, and obtained a postgraduate diploma in Marketing from the Chartered Institute of Marketing.