Business Combinations, Goodwill and Other Intangible Assets
We have historically grown, in part, through a series of acquisitions. Consistent with the services nature of the majority of businesses we have acquired, we have recognized significant goodwill and intangible assets resulting from these acquisitions. Intangible assets are initially recorded at their respective acquisition date fair values and amortized on a straight-line basis over their estimated useful lives. They primarily represent customer relationships, management contracts and customer backlogs acquired as part of our acquisitions.
We reassessed our reporting units as of January 1, 2022, the effective date of our current organizational structure, and reassigned goodwill to reflect our new segment structure using a relative fair value allocation approach. We now define our reporting units as our five global business segments, (i) Markets Advisory, (ii) Capital Markets, (iii) Work Dynamics, (iv) JLL Technologies and (v) LaSalle. This change did not impact our LaSalle reporting unit and, therefore, its goodwill balance was excluded from this exercise and remained unchanged. Under the relative fair value allocation approach, the fair value of each impacted reporting unit was determined using a combination of the income approach and the market approach, and this resulting relative fair value was used to reassign the balance of goodwill.
We evaluate goodwill for impairment annually on July 1st of each year or when a triggering event occurs. In our annual goodwill impairment evaluation on July 1, 2023, we considered qualitative and quantitative factors and determined it is not more-likely-than-not that the fair value of each reporting unit is less than their carrying value. In performing our assessments of all reporting units, we primarily considered (i) macroeconomic and industry trends, (ii) our overall financial performance, and nature of the key drivers thereof, during the year at both the reporting unit and consolidated reporting levels, (iii) near and longer-term forecasts of operating income and cash flows generated by our reporting units in relation to the carrying values of the net assets of each reporting unit, and (iv) our market capitalization in relation to the aggregate carrying value of our net assets.
In addition to our annual impairment evaluation, we evaluated whether events or circumstances have occurred in the period subsequent to our annual impairment testing and determined it is not more-likely-than-not that the fair value of all our reporting units are less than their respective carrying values. It is possible our determination that goodwill for a reporting unit is not impaired could change in the future if current economic or other conditions deteriorate. We will continue to monitor the relationship between our market capitalization and carrying value, as well as the ability of our reporting units to deliver current and projected earnings and cash flows sufficient to support the carrying values of the net assets of their respective businesses.
We evaluate our Identified intangibles for impairment annually or more frequently if other events or circumstances indicate the carrying value may be impaired.
See Note 4, Business Combinations, Goodwill and Other Intangible Assets, for additional information on business combinations, goodwill and other intangible assets.