Effect of Intangible Assets on Market Value of Listed Manufacturing Firms in Nigeria

The study examined the effect of intangible assets on market value of listed manufacturing firms in Nigeria. The study adopted an Ex-post facto research design. The population of the study comprised of the listed consumer goods companies, listed industrial goods companies, quoted oil and gas firms and the listed healthcare entities in Nigeria from (2013-2023). This study employed analytical software of SPSS and Microsoft excel for the analysis. The secondary data collected were analyzed using descriptive statistics, correlation, and regression analysis. The results of the regression analysis revealed that three major intangible assets- goodwill, software, and research & development (R&D) significantly influenced the market capitalization of the firms. Goodwill had a positive and significant effect on market capitalization, explaining 69.1% of the changes in firm value. This indicated that firms with higher goodwill tend to have higher market capitalization. Software had a negative and significant effect on market capitalization, contributing to a 22.9% decline in firm value. This suggested that higher investment in software could reduce market capitalization, possibly due to maintenance costs or inefficiencies in software utilization. Research and Development (R&D) also had a negative and significant effect, contributing to a 23.8% decrease in market capitalization. It was thus concluded that intangible assets have significant effect on market value of listed manufacturing firms in Nigeria. The recommendations made included that firms should focus on projects that have clear market potential and can generate immediate value.