GOODWILL

Many of the former owners and staff of acquired funeral homes have provided high quality service to families for generations. The resulting loyalty often represents a substantial portion of the value of a funeral business. The excess of the purchase price over the fair value of net identifiable assets acquired, as determined by management in business acquisition transactions accounted for as purchases, is recorded as goodwill. Goodwill has not historically been recorded in connection with the acquisition of cemetery businesses.

We performed our 2013 annual impairment test of goodwill using information as of August 31, 2013. Under current guidance, we are permitted to first assess qualitative factors to determine whether it is more-likely-than not that the fair value of a reporting unit is less than its carrying amount as a basis for determining whether it is necessary to perform the two-step goodwill impairment test. We conducted qualitative assessments in 2011 and 2012, however, for our 2013 annual impairment test, we performed the two-step goodwill impairment test. Our intent is to perform the two-step test at least once every three years unless certain indicators or events suggest otherwise. See Part II, Item 7, Overview of Critical Accounting Policies and Estimates and Item 8. Financial Statements and Supplementary Data, Note 2, to the Consolidated Financial Statements in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2012, discussing the methodology used for the annual goodwill impairment test. Based on our 2013 impairment test, we concluded that there was no impairment to goodwill.

The following table presents the changes in goodwill in our Consolidated Balance Sheets (in thousands):




Goodwill as of December 31, 2012	$	218,442
Impairment	(101		)
Reclassification of assets held for sale	(1,097		)
Goodwill as of September 30, 2013	$	217,244

The impairment of $0.1 million is related to a business discontinued in the first quarter of 2013 as the carrying value exceeded fair value.