impairment
Impairment is the art of stealthily discarding the burdens called value at the fiscal year end. It is the magical ritual of erasing inconvenient numbers from the balance sheet stage. Welcomed by investors as a carefully disguised “health” indicator, it secretly transmutes red ink into an invisible serpent. It sums up the gap between corporate optimism and reality in one line, offering executives the perfect opportunity to test their creative excuses.