Intangible assets include concessions, industrial property rights and similar rights, goodwill and advance payments.

The requirements governing the capitalisation of development expenses were not met in the 2008/09 financial year. Like research expenses, these have therefore been recognised as expenses in the period in which they were incurred. The volume of expenses qualifying as research expenses under IFRS amounted to
Euro 3 415 thousand in the 2008/09 financial year (previous year: Euro 1 871 thousand). Research and development expenses mainly relate to activities aimed at achieving ongoing improvements in working processes, product development and technological enhancements.

Concessions, industrial property rights and similar rights and values consist of software and of contractually agreed grants to customers and suppliers. The useful lives of such rights are based on the relevant economic aspects or contractual requirements and range from 3 to 50 years.

Goodwill is tested for impairment at least once a year. As in the previous year, growth rates ranging from 0.5 % to 1.0 % were used in the budgets for the impairment test performed in the 2008/09 financial year.

The recoverable amount / value in use was determined by discounting the cash flows expected at the German shareholdings using discount rates (weighted cost of capital) averaging 8.5 % before taxes. The discount rates have been determined on the basis of available market data.

The carrying amounts stated for goodwill are structured as follows:

For the purposes of performing impairment tests, goodwill was allocated to cash generating units. The cash generating units basically correspond to the legal subgroups or individual companies. No write-downs were undertaken in the 2008/09 financial year. After the inclusion of A+S Naturenergie GmbH in the scope of consolidation of the MVV Energie Group, its goodwill of Euro 4 867 thousand has been reported openly for the first time. The change at the MVV Czech subgroup was due to currency translation effects in the 2008/09 financial year.

In the 2008/09 financial year, accumulated historic scheduled amortisation was offset against accumulated costs of acquisition and manufacture amounting to
Euro 29 063 thousand pursuant to IFRS 3.79.b. The previous year’s figures were adjusted accordingly.

The extraordinary amortisation posted in the 2008/09 financial year took the form of asset impairments due to the restructuring measures implemented at the energy-related services subgroup.