sponsor
Founder-owned
businesses
Somebody built this. That is the whole file.
Westmark buys founder-owned operating businesses in the American West. We open a file, we read it, and we tell you what we think — in writing, in ten days.
Open the file ↓- Founders still running the business after we bought it
- 6/11 Founders still in their seat, of the eleven files we have closed
- No fund. Every transaction is capitalised on its own, by partners who read the file first.
The buyer you are being introduced to has probably never run anything.
Rev. 2026
Westmark was started by three people who had each sold a company they built and disliked the process. The objection was not the price. It was that the people across the table had read the business rather than seen it, and had a fund structure that required them to own it for exactly five years regardless of what it needed.
So we set it up the other way round. Every transaction is capitalised on its own, with partners who look at the specific business rather than a blind pool. The hold is whatever the company warrants. Two of our eleven have been held twelve years and are not for sale; one we sold in thirty months because a strategic buyer could do more with it than we could.
The part founders tend to care about most: your people find out from you, in a room, before anyone else. We have never once run a process that leaked to a workforce.
“Every business we have bought was somebody's best twenty years. We try to act like it.”Ruth Okada-Vance, Founding Partner
Eleven files closed in thirteen years. Two hundred and eleven opened last year alone.
What makes a file worth opening.
| Parameter | Requirement | Range |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue | Established, audited or reviewedThree years minimum. We will work with compiled statements if the owner will sit for a quality-of-earnings. | $8M – $90M |
| EBITDA | Positive every year for three yearsOne bad year is a conversation, not a disqualification. Three is a different business. | $1.5M – $9M |
| Ownership | Founder, family or management heldWe do not buy from other sponsors and we do not participate in broad auctions above forty parties. | ≥ 51% |
| Sector | Operating businesses — services, distribution, light manufacturingNo software, no clinics, no restaurant groups, no anything whose value is a licence. No size limit inside that. | — |
| Geography | Mountain West and SouthwestEight states: CO, UT, NM, AZ, ID, MT, WY and western TX. We will travel further for a carve-out. | 8 |
| Owner intent | Willing to stay 6–24 months, or a real successor in seatSix of eleven founders are still with the business. Five left within a year as planned. | 6 – 24 mo |
| Equity per deal | Syndicated, not drawn from a fundCommitted transaction by transaction by twelve recurring capital partners. | $5M – $40M |
The schedule above is the filter. It is not the reason we buy anything.
What we are actually looking for does not fit in a table: a business whose customers would notice if it closed, run by someone who knows the names of the people who do the work. We have passed on companies that met every parameter on this page because the answer to “what breaks first if you leave?” was “everything”, and the owner did not believe it.
What happens after you send it. With dates.
We read it and call you
Three years of statements and a customer list. A partner reads it, not an analyst. You get a phone call either way — including the call where we say no and tell you which of the four reasons it was.
A written indication, with the arithmetic
Not a range designed to be re-traded later. A number, the multiple, the assumptions behind it, and the three things that would move it up or down. If we are going to be wrong about your business, you find out now rather than in week nine.
We come and stand in it
Two days on site, after hours if you prefer. No advisors, no cameras, no questions to your staff that you have not cleared. We have signed every NDA put in front of us and never breached one.
Diligence, and the capital in parallel
Quality-of-earnings, insurance, environmental where relevant. The syndicate sees the same file we do; we do not go looking for money we have not already soft-circled with the twelve partners who have done this before.
Close, and the room with your people in it
You tell your team, in person, before the wire moves. We are in the building the following morning and every payroll runs unchanged. That is the whole of what happens in week one.
Median time from first file to signed letter: 24 days.
Median from letter to close: 71. The slowest we have been was 148 days on a carve-out with three environmental permits; the owner had the timeline in writing at day nine and we missed it by six days.
Every file we closed, including the two we would not do again.
Eleven files, eleven rows. Three are sealed: those owners asked not to be described, and we would rather show the gap than quietly shorten the list. Westmark is a demonstration firm — every business, figure and file number on this page is invented.
You get the file. Not the summary of the file.
Twelve family offices and independent-sponsor funds have backed Westmark transactions. Eight have done four or more. Nobody has ever been asked to commit to something they have not read in full.
What we send is the complete working file: the model with live assumptions, the quality-of-earnings in full rather than an executive summary, the customer interview notes with the unflattering ones left in, and the capital plan including what we intend to spend in year one before it earns anything.
After close you get a monthly operating pack on the eighth business day, a quarterly call with the operating partner on the account, and a written note in the quarter anything material goes wrong — WM-018 is the standing example, and the write-down memo is in the file we will send you.
| Parameter | Westmark |
|---|---|
| Check size | $1M – $12M |
| Preferred | 8.0% |
| Promote | 20% |
| Fee on uncalled | None |
| Reporting | Monthly |
| Add-on co-invest | At cost |
Four names. All four have sold a company they built.
There is no associate layer. The person who reads your file is the person who signs the cheque.
That is a constraint, not a boast: it is why we open around two hundred files a year and close one or two. We would rather be slow and known than fast and forgotten.
Two readers, two envelopes.
Open a file. Get a written answer in ten days.
Three years of financials and a customer list. A partner reads it. You get an indication with the arithmetic shown, or a no with the reason named. We sign your NDA first and we do not contact a single customer, employee or lender without your written say-so.
Open a filefiles@westmarkcg.exampleRead a closed file before there is a live one.
We will send the complete working file from our most recent closed transaction — model, quality-of-earnings, customer notes, and the post-close variance against what we underwrote. Judge the underwriting on a deal you cannot be sold.
Request a closed filepartners@westmarkcg.example