MARK BARNES: You, me and everything has a sell-by date
However tried and tested, there comes a time when it’s time to move on
Everything has a sell-by date. Everything. Significant value has so often been destroyed by decision-makers in business not being prepared to dump legacy assets and move on to the new worlds they find themselves in. Sometimes it’s just not keeping up, but it can be a fundamental, strategic mistake that destroys the company.
If you correctly depreciate your assets by the time they become redundant, their carrying value in your books will be zero. After that — though accountants struggle to deal with this — their value can turn negative. Even when old assets (and people) are still producing income, their contribution to the firm can be negative when measured in terms of opportunity cost...
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