Strome Business Minute With Dr. Jeff Tanner

Henrico based Altria is writing down four point five billion dollars in its investment in Juul, the e-cigarette leader. Altria has nearly thirteen billion invested in the San Francisco-based company, which many saw as the future of smoking. But there have been almost forty deaths attributed to e-cigarettes, along with nearly nineteen hundred vaping-related cases of lung disease in the US. This type of write-down is called an impairment charge. The company has reduced its assets in the goodwill category, meaning there is no physical asset or cost associated with the write-down. The write-down is taken as an operating expense, reducing net income. Should the Altria sell its Juul stock, then there would be either income or losses based on the price of the stock.