Inventory-Obsolescence Deal Diligence Director

The mandate

A healthcare investor is acquiring a regional diagnostics distributor whose inventory reserve is based primarily on ageing. Reagents expire by lot and instrument family, some products cannot sell after registration transfer, calibrators depend on cold-chain evidence, and spare parts only have value while installed analysers remain supported. Supplier return rights and hospital tenders further alter recoverability. Headline stock therefore overstates fungible saleable value.

During eight weeks, the principal deliverable will be a lot- and part-level recoverability model, reserve bridge and purchase-agreement input pack. Milestone one reconciles ledger, warehouse and item masters in week two; milestone two maps expiry, registration and installed-base constraints in week four; milestone three tests return, demand and disposal cases in week six; milestone four presents value ranges and Day One controls.

The client will provide inventory ledgers, lot and serial records, expiry dates, temperature logs, product registrations, installed-base data, service-obligation lists, tender awards, forecasts, sales and returns, supplier agreements, purchase orders, reserve calculations and destruction certificates. Acceptance requires physical samples to trace to system status, reserve adjustments to reproduce and unsupported data populations to remain quantified rather than silently extrapolated.

The work excludes conducting a full physical count, certifying product quality or cold-chain compliance, interpreting registration law, negotiating supplier returns, assessing clinical performance, setting purchase price and implementing post-close controls. Consultants may observe authorised counts and quantify counsel- or quality-confirmed scenarios. Management and specialists remain responsible for representations, certifications and disposition decisions.

Outputs will preserve SKU, lot, serial, instrument family, warehouse, ownership, registration, expiry, temperature status, demand, return right, disposal cost and source. The buyer team must refresh one late stock file and independently reproduce three sampled adjustments before acceptance. A completion count, recall investigation or integration programme is excluded unless separately commissioned.

Why this is external work

Standard ageing analysis misses the technical and regulatory dependencies that determine whether diagnostics stock can produce cash. Target teams know individual exceptions but have not joined them across inventory systems under deal time pressure. Independent specialists can quantify recoverability without certifying products or deciding regulatory status, giving the buyer evidence for value protection and immediate control priorities.

What you will own

• Reconcile general ledger, warehouse, consignment, goods-in-transit, quarantine and service-stock populations by SKU, lot and serial.
• Map shelf life, remaining usable window, registration, language, tender, storage and cold-chain status to saleability.
• Link reagent, calibrator and consumable demand to active instrument families, installed-base utilisation and service commitments.
• Test spare-part recoverability against equipment age, failure history, support horizon, substitution and cannibalisation practice.
• Evaluate supplier return, exchange, price-protection and destruction rights using executed terms and realised settlement evidence.
• Quantify reserve, working-capital, debt-like disposal and purchase-value outcomes under demand, expiry and registration scenarios.
• Deliver the recoverability engine, sample book, evidence index, reserve bridge, limitations and Day One item controls.

Candidate qualifications

• Led inventory diligence for diagnostics, medical devices, pharmaceuticals or another regulated expiry-sensitive distribution business.
• Worked at lot, serial and instrument-family level across expiry, registration, cold chain and service-support dependencies.
• Reconciled physical, warehouse, ledger, consignment and goods-in-transit populations under restricted transaction access.
• Quantified supplier return, destruction, tender and installed-base effects without certifying product quality or legal status.
• Distinguished ordinary reserve, purchase-price adjustment, working-capital treatment and debt-like disposal exposure.
• Delivered reproducible item-level models that buyer teams refreshed with late stock and demand information.

Non-negotiables

• Can complete three Cairo, Alexandria, Riyadh or Nairobi evidence visits inside the eight-week engagement.
• Will disclose target, supplier, hospital, regulator, buyer, quality adviser and competing distributor relationships.
• Brings regulated diagnostics or device inventory diligence; generic warehouse ageing analysis is insufficient.
• Accepts no authority over physical certification, regulatory interpretation, clinical quality, supplier negotiation or purchase price.

1. 49 words maximum. Describe inventory whose ageing looked acceptable but regulatory or installed-base evidence made it obsolete.
2. 49 words maximum. Which source best links diagnostic reagent recoverability to the active analyser population?
3. 49 words maximum. How would you treat stock with valid shelf life but an uncertain registration transfer?