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If you're buying your first manufacturer or distributor, a Quality of Earnings report isn't optional — it's the important money you spend in diligence. It takes the seller's reported EBITDA apart, strips the add-backs that don't hold up, normalizes the one-time items, and hands you and your lender a number you can underwrite against. But here's the thing nobody says out loud at the closing table: a QoE tells you the earnings were real (past tense). It doesn't tell you they'll

The situation: Two separate engagements, one theme: logistics categories quietly drifting far from market rates. A US manufacturing group was spending $12M annually on small-parcel shipping across multiple business units, each negotiating alone. Separately, an OEM's air freight lane from China was priced at roughly double the market rate per kilogram. What we did We consolidated the group's full volume and negotiated corporate rate cards that reflected their true combined buy

A Fortune 500 consumer products company was spending $92M annually on folding cartons and paperboard. Board Pricing was set by Tier 1 converters with no visibility into the underlying paper cost — the largest single driver of what they paid. What we did With a comprehensive bid across both tiers of the supply chain: Tier 1 carton converters and, critically, the Tier 2 paper mills upstream. By negotiating board pricing directly with the mills and directing those material costs