Aktiva
Asset · Assets / Property
Everything a company owns or controls that has economic value — from cash and machinery to patents.
What it is
Assets are the left side of the balance sheet. The fundamental equation always holds:
Assets = Liabilities (Debt) + Equity
Assets are classified by liquidity:
Current Assets — convert to cash within 12 months:
- →Cash and short-term investments
- →Accounts Receivable
- →Inventory
Non-current Assets (Long-term Assets) — held longer:
- →Tangible assets: buildings, machinery, equipment (PP&E)
- →Intangible assets: patents, software, customer relationships
- →Goodwill (premium paid in acquisitions)
- →Long-term investments
Why track it
Asset analysis answers key questions:
- →Asset quality: Is goodwill inflated? Are receivables collectible?
- →Capital intensity: Does the company need lots of machinery and buildings (asset-heavy), or is software and people enough (asset-light)?
- →Asset turnover: How much revenue does the company generate per $1 of assets? (Revenue / Total Assets)
Asset-light companies (software, marketplaces) tend to be more valuable because they generate FCF without needing massive reinvestment in fixed assets.
Real-world example
Microsoft (Jun 2025): Total assets ~$530B
- →Cash + investments: ~$79B
- →PP&E (data centers, hardware): ~$164B — growing due to AI infrastructure
- →Goodwill + intangible assets: ~$77B (large portion from the Activision acquisition)
Even though Microsoft is investing heavily in data centers, its software/cloud business remains relatively asset-light on an operating basis.
Watch out for
Goodwill can be a silent time bomb: if an acquisition goes wrong, the company will write an impairment (goodwill write-down), which flows through the income statement as a one-time loss.
Inventory at manufacturing companies can become obsolete — watch inventory turnover (Days Inventory Outstanding).