When a consumer brand stops trading, distribution disappears in a quarter. Recognition does not. Across the marks we have acquired since 2016, aided recognition among the original core demographic fell roughly six points a year — meaning a brand that was known by 70% of its buyers at failure is still known by half of them five years later.
That decay curve is the whole thesis. If you can acquire the mark inside eighteen months of the trading stop, you are buying most of the awareness at none of the cost of building it.
The constraint is manufacturing, not marketing. Every relaunch we have got wrong was got wrong by placing the name with an operator who could make the product cheaply rather than correctly. A heritage mark survives one bad season and no more.
You are buying most of the awareness at none of the cost of building it.
This note reflects transactions completed by the group and is published for information only. It is not an appraisal, a valuation opinion or an offer of credit.