The questions people are too polite to ask.

No. We prefer a majority position, but we do not require one, and a partial sale is often the better answer — particularly if you want to take some money off the table and keep going. Tell us what you want and we will structure around it.

They keep their jobs and, in almost every case, their manager. Your people and your culture are a large part of what we are paying for — disrupting them would destroy the thing we bought. We do not arrive with a restructure, and we do not mandate cost synergies.

Almost certainly not. In most cases the name is a significant part of the value, and changing it throws away goodwill built over decades. If there were ever a genuine commercial reason to revisit it, that would be a conversation with you and your team rather than a decision made somewhere else.

Not from us.

A first conversation is an hour. An indicative offer follows within a week or two of seeing basic financials. Confirmatory diligence takes four to six weeks. Most sales complete comfortably inside three months of the first call, and we will not stretch it out to manufacture leverage.

We look at sustainable cash earnings, how recurring and durable the customer base is, the strength of the team, and what the business will need from here. We will explain how we arrived at a number rather than simply presenting one.

We will not always be the highest bidder in a competitive process, and we would rather say so early than waste your time. If price is the only thing that matters to you, an auction will serve you better than we will.

Sparingly, and often not at all. It means our offer does not depend on a lender’s credit committee, and it means the business’s earnings can be reinvested or paid out rather than committed to servicing a loan.

Nothing in how Kindred Partners is built creates pressure to. There is no fund, no vintage year, no investors waiting on a return and no date in anyone’s diary. We buy expecting to own indefinitely, and every part of the structure is designed to reinforce that.

We would love you to, but this is entirely your choice, and all three answers are fine with us: a clean exit with a defined handover, a board or advisory seat, or carrying on as the leader with the parts of the job you least enjoy taken off your plate.

Yes, as a matter of course, before you send us anything sensitive.

Yes. Our mandate is open — the criteria describe what we prefer, not what we will look at. The worst outcome is a quick, specific no and half an hour of your time.

A director of Kindred Partners, from the first phone call through to settlement. You won’t be handed down to a junior team.

A conversation, and nothing else. If we are both interested after that, we will ask for a modest amount of financial information and tell you exactly what — it is less than you are expecting.