An overseas-listed group in liquidation held something unusual for an insolvency estate: well-known consumer brands with decades of recognition across Asian markets, monetized through licensees. For the liquidators, the brands were recoverable value, but only if someone could establish who was actually using them, under what arrangements, and on what commercial terms.
“The research traced which businesses were manufacturing and selling under the brands in India.”
The engagement, carried out during my tenure at a global investigations firm, traced the licensee landscape in India: which businesses were manufacturing and selling under the brands, what their corporate substance was, and how their arrangements with the estate's companies actually stood. The research gave the liquidators what an estate needs before deciding how to recover the value: a verified picture of where its intangible asset was, and who was profiting from it.
Insolvency forensics usually focuses on where the money went. This engagement is a reminder that an estate can also lose value through licenses, brands and rights that keep earning for other people. Recovering that value starts with finding out who holds and uses them.