Spark (NZ) not enthusiastic perhaps, page-58

As a CPA you are more aware than I and most others around here that when dealing with assets such as cable they are depreciated at a fixed rate down to almost non existent levels at a time well before that assets life has expired.
I would suggest to you that you're intangible talk is in fact complete twaddle when it comes to a true cashflow valuation.
Yes intangibles will be written down to zero at some point (or should be) but what of the cashflow from all the other assets that have indeed been getting written down year after year, even whilst cashflow from that asset may be improving?
Nobody cares about the goodwill except you my friend as your job is to keep the accounts in a way that will boost the returns to the person who owns the business, ie; shareholders
Nobody buys a business based on the intangibles on a balance unless they are inexperienced, they buy based on the return they can get on the underlying assets over the longterm and value this by discounting those future cashflows to come up with a value they believe will provide the necessary cash returns.
The mistake VOC has made IMO is they have over-leveraged in the short term and executed poorly partly because the different companies they bought whilst having cable assets were not as complimentary to each-other as they thought.
There is cable and there is cable, someone like Teoh knows the difference hence amalgamating his acquisitions has gone so much better, he understood what he was buying and had a better idea of the future costs involved in combining the businesses and extracting the underlying value.
VOC will be forced to sell off their parts as they are likely just realizing this now, someone like Teoh will pick off a part he likes if the appropriate opportunity arises, at the moment he lacks the balance sheet to make a move, VOC would have trudged ahead and bought out another whole company at an inflated price as they were just able to keep raising cash at the drop of a hat.
The downturns always show the difference between good management and bad, TPM will survive and prosper, VOC won't exist in it's current form.

Ps: from an accounting point of view you are spot on! It's just that in reality no one looking at buying out VOC is looking at that with any interest whatsoever, if they were they would just be the next bad news story.