Thesis-driven. Proprietary research. Founder-led outreach. Owners who pick up the phone.
Old Soldier runs retained acquisition searches for lower-middle-market private equity funds, family offices and strategic buyers: the prospect list in five business days, the owners called personally, and every conversation inside a private deal room your team can open on a phone.
Reply rate counts companies, not messages. Every number here is defined in how a search is measured.
What the deal team sees, and what it does not
Sponsors see a fraction of even the visible deal market.
Among sponsors primarily investing at $10 to $49 million of enterprise value, the median firm reviewed fewer than one in ten completed, advisor-led deals in its target market. The owners who never hire a banker are a separate problem: reaching them takes direct outreach, and Old Soldier puts a live conversation with the owner at the center of it, supported by careful research and respectful follow-up. Sourcing is a full-time job that nobody on the deal team has full time for.
Source: SPS Deal Origination Benchmark Report 2026, full-year 2025, 185 private equity firms. Coverage measures completed PE acquisitions with a confirmed sell-side advisor within a firm's target criteria that it reviewed. New sources count first-time sell-side advisors in the SPS database over the preceding three years.
The 90-day cycle every retained search runs on
A search is a sequence, not a list.
Every mandate runs the same cycle, with the same deliverables, so you always know where it stands. Numbers below are the operating standard, not a promise about outcomes.
Thesis brief
A one-hour mapping call turns your investment criteria into a written brief: size, geography, ownership, disqualifiers, prior contacts. It is the document every later decision refers back to.
Prospect list
Typically fifty to eighty companies, researched from public and proprietary sources and Old Soldier's own owner conversations, with a column for your yes or no and one for your comments. You mark it up; we do not chase names you have not approved.
Approved targets
Approved names become the first batch of the target list and are loaded into your deal room. Further research adds prospects for your approval, and each new batch joins the outreach cycle behind the one before it.
Owner outreach
A four-touch sequence per target, each touch paired with a phone call, spaced two to three weeks apart. Targets go out in batches of twenty to twenty-five, so first contact on one batch runs while follow-up continues on the last, and the calling never goes quiet. Every live conversation lands in the deal room the same day.
Introductions, and everything after them
Three-way calls with owners who want to talk, then the work that keeps a live conversation moving. We coordinate execution of the buyer-approved NDA where either side wants one, gather what your team asks for into a data room, and support the IOI and the LOI. From there it is the basic blocking and tackling that stalls most deals: chasing documents, keeping schedules, and keeping both sides talking through the purchase agreement and the closing. We do not perform financial or legal due diligence.
Search review
We measure the search the way it should be measured and decide together what the next cycle looks like: more research and a new wave of prospects, a widened geography, a re-cut thesis, or a move to the next thesis entirely. The cycle repeats from here for as long as the thesis is producing.
How a search is measured
Four numbers, defined the same way on every mandate. The first two are Old Soldier's record from outreach already sent. The third is the standard your search is run against; the fourth is how often you get the report on it. Each tile says which it is.
Measured figures are Old Soldier's own outreach, sent from barker@oldsoldier.org and counted from the sending record. Activity on other mandates is not a prediction of results on yours.
Where every mandate lives. Try it.
Every conversation, in one room your team can open on a phone.
Each retained search ships with a private deal room: a tiered target map, a dossier on every company with notes from the owner conversations, a transparent scoring method, a roll-up builder that models the combined economics of any set of targets you pick, and a live call plan. The one below is a working sample on a fictional sector. Searches run wherever the thesis points, nationally and across North America. This one is bounded to a single sector in a single region because every real search is: a thesis that covers everywhere covers nothing.
The sample room is open to buyers.
A working deal room on a fictional sector: tiered target map, a dossier on every company, the scoring method, a roll-up builder and the call plan. One request opens it, along with the fee schedule and the worked examples.
Where searches have been executed
Fluency in the sectors where owners still answer the phone.
Searches executed for private equity firms, family offices, strategic buyers and their portfolio companies. Representative sub-sectors below; the full list is longer and available on the call.
Building and infrastructure
- Fire and life safety
- Overhead doors and access control
- HVAC and mechanical services
- Elevator and vertical transportation
- Industrial inspection and NDT
- Storage tank services
Business and IT services
- Contingent labor and staffing
- Security and emergency response
- IT asset disposition
- Managed IT services
- Franchisors, multi-unit services
- Property and restoration services
Manufacturing and software
- Aviation maintenance, repair and overhaul
- Beverage dispensing systems
- Material handling equipment
- Specialty and niche manufacturing
- Supply chain and manufacturing software
- Vertical SaaS
Healthcare and education
- Behavioral health and addiction treatment
- Home health and hospice
- Physical therapy
- Veterinary
- Optical and eye care
- K-12 assessments and educational publishing
Structure and starting points.
Retained, and credited against the success fee.
The retainer funds the research, outreach and private deal room. See the engagement terms for the term, Day-90 commitment and target protections.
Retained Acquisition Search
Success fee payable only when an acquisition closes.
- Six-month minimum, then month to month with 30 days notice on either side. The retainer carries into the next thesis rather than ending.
- The success fee follows a percentage schedule with a minimum per closing. Request the fee schedule and worked examples.
- Retainers build a credit against the success fee, capped at 12 paid months per closing and subject to a minimum cash payment at closing.
- Two-year fee tail on introduced targets. We reserve your approved targets for you while the engagement is active. Companies we introduce remain exclusive to you for two years afterward.
- Includes the prospect list, four-touch outreach per target, tracker and call every two weeks, the private deal room, warm introductions, and the facilitation that follows one: NDAs, the data room, IOI and LOI support, and the coordination that carries a live conversation to a signed purchase agreement.
Current as of September 2026. Full engagement terms.
Three other ways to work
Acquisition searches follow our retained-search pricing, with ongoing research, outreach, and relationship development across successive acquisitions. Joint-venture and partnership engagements are scoped separately.
Day 90 is a traction check, not a finish line.
The first 90 days launch the search. From there, we keep approaching new owners and advancing opportunities. In fragmented sectors, a single thesis can support years of acquisition activity.
Request access.
Request the fee schedule, worked examples, and sample deal room. No mailing list or automated sales sequence.
Thank you. Your email is confirmed.
Your request is awaiting review. If approved, we will email your access link.
If you would rather just talk, write to barker@oldsoldier.org and he will call you.
Capacity, conflicts, continuity and confidentiality
The rules are in the engagement letter, not just on this page.
Capacity, conflicts, continuity and confidentiality are settled in writing before a search starts, which is what keeps the cadence on this page true for every client. Each of these is a clause you can hold us to, not a promise on a website.
Capacity before signature
Brad accepts a thesis only when he has capacity to run it at the cadence on this page. Your start date is confirmed before you sign.
Founder-led outreach
Brad leads your thesis, writes the brief, reviews the research, makes the owner calls and writes the notes the same day. Research associates under NDA prepare company research and data pulls.
Exclusivity, and the searches we turn down
We reserve your approved targets for you while the engagement is active. Companies we introduce remain exclusive to you for two years afterward. During that protection, a reserved target is not worked for another client without your written consent. We also decline competing searches while yours is active unless they are separated by geography.
Companies you already know
Show written evidence of contact in the prior 180 days within 10 business days of receiving the list, and that company comes off the fee schedule.
Your name leads the outreach
We normally identify the buyer in our first contact. When a client needs initial confidentiality, we explain that upfront and identify the buyer before arranging an introduction. We agree the outreach message with you before a single call goes out.
From introduction to closing
Once an owner and your team want to keep talking, we stay on it. We coordinate execution of the buyer-approved NDA where either side wants one, get the information your team asks for into a data room, support the IOI and the LOI, and handle the scheduling, chasing and follow-through that slows deals down, through the purchase agreement and the close. What we do not do is diligence: no financial or legal review, no valuation or fairness opinion, no legal, accounting or tax advice. Market observations are not a valuation. Your advisors do that work and we keep it moving.
Security your compliance officer can check
Your thesis, approved targets and owner-conversation notes are confidential. Client-room access, backup, recovery and export arrangements are confirmed before the engagement begins.
See the security summary for the data-handling policy.
In their words
What clients say.
"Wow, what an awesome list. It's not every day we come across so many businesses that would be new to us."
"That dashboard is really impressive. Still love the thesis."
"Appreciate the work you've done with the team on the aviation space. [Our deal lead] was impressed with your knowledge and contacts with the space."
"Thanks for following up and staying on top of the deal."
Quotes are from client correspondence and are attributed by role. Client names are shared on the call with their permission.
If we contacted you
If Old Soldier called you, a specific buyer asked us to.
We represent the buyer only. We are not a sell-side adviser and we do not represent the owner. We contact a company only when a client with a written mandate has looked at the market and named you. Here is what that means for you.
Founder, and still on the calls
Brad Barker, founder and managing director.
Brad has originated acquisitions for private equity funds, family offices and strategic buyers since 2016. Old Soldier LLC has been the vehicle throughout: from 2016 to 2023 he ran searches as a director on the platform of a national buy-side origination firm, and since November 2023 he has run Old Soldier's own mandates full time. He built the method Old Soldier runs on, and he still builds lists, calls owners and writes dossiers, which is why owners who have talked to him once tend to answer when he calls again two years later.
Before that he spent twenty years as an Army aviation officer. He commanded an aviation task force of 585 soldiers and 53 aircraft in Afghanistan, served as deputy commander of a 3,700-soldier combat aviation brigade deployed across Iraq, Afghanistan and Europe, and later ran operations for a school district as its chief operating officer. Founder-owners, many of them veterans themselves, recognize the background, and the discipline shows in how a search is run.
Old Soldier is based in Luther, Montana, and works nationally and across North America.
Twenty minutes on the phone
Tell us the thesis. We will tell you whether it is worth running.
Book a 20-minute call
Bring your investment criteria and your questions. We will tell you roughly how many companies fit, how many we already know, and whether a retained search is the right tool. If it is not, we will say so. The thesis brief and the deal room are the first deliverables of an engagement, not a pitch.
Brad leads each search and makes the owner calls. We limit active engagements to preserve that attention and confirm your start date before you sign.