Confidentiality
For most owners we talk to, confidentiality is the single most important part of the conversation. It is also the part most often handled poorly by brokers, listing services, and competing buyers. Here is how we approach it.
The first call is informal. There is no NDA at this stage because there is no need for one. We do not ask you to share customer names, financial figures, employee details, or anything else that could damage your business if it leaked. We ask high-level questions — what you do, where you operate, what you are thinking about — and we answer your questions about who we are.
If we both decide to continue, we move to a mutual NDA. Until then, nothing on either side is shared in writing or with third parties.
Our NDA protects both sides. You are protected from us sharing anything about your business with anyone outside our firm. We are protected from you sharing anything about our valuation methodology, our offer terms, or our internal process with brokers, competitors, or other potential buyers.
The NDA covers your business name, your location, your financials, your customer list, your vendor relationships, your employees, your real estate, your operational practices, and the existence of our discussion itself. The fact that we are even talking is confidential.
Internally, deal information is restricted to the partners and the small diligence team directly involved. We do not run pitch books for internal investment committees. We do not present your business to outside parties. If we engage outside advisors — accountants, environmental consultants, attorneys — they sign their own NDAs and only receive what they need to do their work.
Most conversations we have do not result in a transaction, and that is fine. When a conversation ends — whether after the first call, the preliminary valuation, the LOI, or even during confirmatory diligence — the NDA remains in force. We do not "shop" interest. We do not use what we learned to pursue a competitor. We do not call you back six months later to say "are you ready yet."
Sellers often come back to us 12, 24, or 36 months after an initial conversation. When they do, the prior NDA still protects everything they previously shared.
Our reputation in the trade is the single largest asset we have. If we leaked a single conversation, no owner would ever talk to us again. We protect confidentiality because it is the right thing to do — and because it is the only way our business model works at all.