Three-quarters of total asset value in purchase price allocations (PPAs) for 2016 transactions related to intangibles, according to the “2017 Purchase Price Allocation Study” from PPAnalyser, a data firm located in Amsterdam. That’s a modest (1%) increase over the prior year. The statistics are from 428 PPAs related to 2016 transactions (mostly U.S. companies). The study (now in its sixth edition) also provides economic useful life data used in PPA analyses. The median economic useful life of contract-related intangibles increased from 7.5 years in 2015 to 10 years in 2016, and the median economic useful life of technology-related intangibles decreased from 6 to 5.5 years. For marketing-related and customer-related intangibles, the economic useful life remained the same compared to 2015 (5 years and 10 years, respectively). In 2018, PPAnalyser says it will add more European PPAs to its database, which also includes discount rates and impairment amounts.