Consumer and CPG businesses are financed and acquired on the quality of their channel economics: velocity by door, retail versus direct mix, and trade spend and deduction accounting that survives diligence. Zenith arranges working capital and growth facilities for branded consumer businesses, and prepares the reporting and quality of earnings work strategic buyers and lenders test first.
The capital problem in this sector
Trade spend booked as marketing is a restatement waiting to happen
Slotting fees, promotional allowances and deductions belong against revenue. Where they sit in marketing spend, reported gross margin overstates the real economics and the correction lands during diligence, usually alongside a reduced multiple.
Rebuilding the accounting properly takes quarters of clean data, not a schedule prepared in the fortnight before a data room opens.
Velocity by door is the only growth number that travels
Distribution gains flatter a revenue line for a year. What a strategic buyer underwrites is whether the product moves once it is on the shelf, measured per door per week and held against comparable sets.
A brand that can evidence velocity holding as doors expand is a different asset from one whose growth is entirely distribution-led, and it is priced accordingly.
Inventory and co-packer terms decide the working capital need
Minimum order quantities, co-manufacturing lead times and retailer payment terms set the cash cycle long before a finance team sees it. The gap between paying a co-packer and being paid by a retailer is the facility size, and it is measurable well in advance.
Sized properly, that gap is funded with a receivables or inventory line rather than with equity raised at the wrong point in the cycle.
Where Zenith fits
Debt placement
Purchase-order, inventory and receivables lines sized to the gap between paying a co-manufacturer and being paid by a retailer.
Fractional CFO
Velocity by door, channel mix and gross margin after trade spend, reported to the standard a strategic buyer applies.
Transaction advisory
Trade spend reclassification and deduction reconciliation — the single most common source of consumer deal repricing — run before the process starts.
Fundraise readiness
Model, materials and channel evidence assembled so the raise runs on numbers a buyer would recognise.
Questions we are asked
How should trade spend be accounted for in a CPG business?
As a deduction from revenue, not as marketing expense. Slotting fees, promotional allowances and retailer deductions all reduce net revenue, and where they are booked below the gross margin line the reported margin overstates the economics. Diligence finds this reliably and the correction usually costs multiple.
What do strategic acquirers look at first in a consumer brand?
Velocity per door per week against a comparable set, channel mix between retail and direct, gross margin after trade spend, and the durability of repeat purchase. Revenue growth that comes purely from new distribution is underwritten differently from growth in an existing door base.
Can a consumer brand finance inventory rather than raise equity?
Where purchase orders and retailer terms are evidenced, yes. Purchase-order, inventory and receivables facilities fund the gap between paying a co-manufacturer and being paid by the retailer, which is a defined and measurable cycle rather than a general funding need.
When should a consumer business start quality of earnings work?
Twelve to eighteen months before a process. Trade spend reclassification, deduction reconciliation and returns provisioning all need several clean quarters behind them before they read as evidence rather than as an adjustment prepared for the buyer.
Last reviewed August 2026
Start with the structure, not the pitch.
Tell us the transaction and the timetable. If it is not something we should run, we will say so.