when one company seeks to take over another the acquiring company can assign a fair value to the identifiable assets that can be reasonably expected to provide a benefit to the purchasing company in the future identifiable assets can be both tangible and intangible assets identifiable assets are quite important in valuing a business accurately 
if an asset is deemed to be identifiable the purchasing company records it as part of its assets on its balance sheet identifiable assets consist of anything that can be separated from the business and disposed of such as machinery vehicles buildings or other equipment if an asset is not deemed to be an identifiable asset then its value is considered part of the goodwill amount arising from the acquisition transaction 