Unlike goodwill, identifiable intangibles have an estimated useful life and are written off through amortisation. Acquisitive companies therefore carry an amortisation charge that reflects deals rather than operations, which is the main honest argument for looking at adjusted-ebitda.
Internally created brands and customer relationships are not on the balance sheet at all, because the spending that built them went through sg-and-a and research-and-development. Two identical companies, one built and one bought, look very different.
Example: Northwind Tools carries $95M of intangibles from the Cloud deal, amortised over eight years at $11M a year, plus $14M of purchased patents on brushless motor design.
Related: amortisation, goodwill, capitalised-software, tangible-book-value, adjusted-ebitda