Goodwill in general is the diiference between what the acquirer paid for the acquiree's assets compare to what those assets were carried in the acquiree's books. I know this is not simple to non accountants, let me use an example.

Oil company A just bought oil company X for $30 million and company X has $20 million of assets in its books, so the goodwill is $10 million. Since it is estimated that company X has 1 million bbl of reserves, company A is allowed to amortize the $10 million goodwill at a rate of $10 per bbl ($10 million divided by 1 million bbl) over the life of that reserve. This is done in accordance with the "matching principle" of accounting, i.e., matching the furutre revenue of producing that reserve against the goodwill amortized.

However, later on it was discovered that company X only has 6 million bbl of oil reserve. Accordingly company A would have to write off $4 million since that "goodwill" has been impaired.

In Kinross' case, that $1.2 billion should be already reflected in the valuation of the company by the investment community when it was announced in November 2008. Therefore the damage, if any, is already reflected in the share price from that point on. As to the hit on earnings in 2009, it would have been discounted also as a non-operating item.

Yes, it is unsightly to be hit with a $1.2 billion write-off but in terms of real damage, it's really already over. Perhaps they should have fired the guy that recommended the Bema acquisition, whose recommendation ended up costing the company $1.2 billion unnecessarily. Chances are they already had done that too. Unless it's Ty himself that made that decision, in that case..... he'll likely be be severely punished, perhaps sent to bed without dinner by his Board of Directors. LOL