Big 4 fees don't fit a €30M deal. But skipping commercial DD is how mid-market FMCG acquisitions fail. Arbol delivers board-ready commercial intelligence at a price point that makes sense — from €4,500, within 10 days, by a senior FMCG operator.
A €80K–€120K commercial due diligence engagement represents 0.3–0.4% of a €30M deal. That's hard to justify when financial DD is already in play. So the commercial assessment either doesn't happen, or it's a cursory effort bolted onto financial DD by a team with no FMCG expertise.
A founder-led FMCG business with €15M revenue doesn't have the data room depth of a Unilever divestiture. The management presentation tells you what they want you to see. Extracting the real commercial picture requires someone who knows what questions to ask — because they've sat in that chair themselves.
Mid-market deals move fast. If your CDD takes 6 weeks, you've lost the deal or you've bid without commercial intelligence. Arbol's 10-day delivery means your IC gets the full commercial picture while the deal timeline is still intact.
At a Big 4, your €80K buys a partner who shows up for the kick-off and a team of 4–6 analysts who are learning FMCG on your deal. At Arbol, your €9,500 buys the undivided attention of someone who has managed FMCG P&Ls across 30+ countries. That's a fundamentally different level of insight.
60-minute call to understand the deal context, the investment thesis, and what the IC needs to see. We align on scope, timeline, and deliverables.
Market sizing, growth dynamics, competitive landscape, and channel structure across the relevant geographies. Triangulated from multiple sources — not just management data.
The Route-to-Value™ (RTV) framework applied across all 8 diagnostic dimensions: revenue quality, brand pricing power, route-to-market, distribution health, key account risk, category dynamics, competitive positioning, and integration complexity.
Board-ready report, executive deck, and 60-minute strategic debrief. Prioritised recommendations with clear go/no-go signals and post-close action items.
If the assessment doesn't surface at least 3 strategic insights your team hasn't identified, you pay nothing. Every engagement. No exceptions.
Mid-market acquirers and PE firms frequently skip commercial due diligence because the cost of traditional CDD providers — typically €60,000–€120,000 at Big 4 or strategy consultancies — doesn't fit the economics of a €15–50M deal. The result is that investment committees make decisions based on financial DD alone, missing the commercial fundamentals that determine whether the deal creates or destroys value.
Arbol's commercial due diligence for mid-market FMCG deals starts at €4,500 for a Red Flag Report (3–5 business days) and €9,500 for a full IC-Ready Assessment (10 business days). This is 80–90% less than Big 4 or strategy consultancy fees because every engagement is delivered by a single senior operator — not a team of 4–6 consultants billing at partner rates.
Yes. Mid-market deals move faster than large-cap transactions, and CDD needs to match that pace. Arbol delivers IC-ready assessments within 10 business days — compared to the 4–8 week industry standard. This speed comes from working with one senior FMCG operator with deep pattern recognition, not from cutting corners on scope.
Arbol typically works on FMCG deals in the €10M–€70M enterprise value range across Europe, DACH, and the Nordics. This is the segment where commercial due diligence is most impactful — large enough that commercial risks can be material, but where traditional CDD providers are either too expensive or too slow.
The Route-to-Value™ framework — 8 diagnostic dimensions specific to FMCG.
How Arbol supports PE deal teams from screening through IC presentation.
The complete acquisition DD framework — from trade spend analysis to integration risk.
How operator-led due diligence surfaces what generalist consultants miss.