A man alone at a workbench in a small shop, rows of tools hung on the wall behind him.

Fieldstone Partners · A private letter · No. 14

I am looking for one
business to run for the
rest of my working life.

To: A Midwestern owner
From: James Whitfield
Re: Buying it, and staying
Date: 12 March 2026

Plate I A bench like my father's, and a wall he would have recognizedCircleville, Ohio

Columbus, Ohio12 March 2026Private & confidential

Dear owner,

My father ran a hardware store in Circleville, Ohio for thirty-one years. I swept that floor, counted that till, and watched him sell it in 2009 to a regional chain that closed it fourteen months later. Nobody in that transaction was dishonest. It was simply that the buyer wanted the customer list and the corner lot, and my father wanted to retire, and no one at the table wanted the business itself.

I am writing because I want the business itself. Not a stake in it, not a platform to bolt it onto, and not a three-year window before somebody else decides what happens next. I am looking for one company in the Midwest — somewhere between one and a half and four million dollars of earnings — to buy outright and then operate myself, from inside the building.

What I did before this

After Ohio State I took a master's at the Kennedy School and spent ten years in community and economic development, most of it working on small-business succession across Ohio, Indiana and western Pennsylvania. The job was mostly arithmetic and funerals: counting how many owner-operated firms in a county were run by someone past sixty-five, then watching a third of them wind down rather than sell, because selling meant handing the thing to a stranger who would not be there on Monday.

I am not going to pretend that made me an operator. It made me someone who has read a great many sets of accounts belonging to companies that were about to disappear, and who noticed which ones did not have to.

What I am actually buying

I am married to Sarah. We have two daughters, Nora and Clara, six and four. We are not moving to your town for a holding period; we are moving there. That is the part that most buyers cannot honestly offer and, I think, the part that matters most to someone who has spent twenty or thirty years building something that employs their neighbors.

Practically, it means the first year is not a restructuring. It is me learning the business from your people, keeping your name over the door if you want it kept, and making no change I cannot explain to the person it affects. I have one acquisition in me, so I would rather take eighteen months to find the right one than close the wrong one this year, which is the kind of thing that is easy to write down and harder to hold to in month twenty.

“The only promise worth making to a seller is one you will still be present to keep.”

Hands running a hand plane along a length of timber in raking afternoon light. — **Plate II** Bench work, Tiffin, Ohio — second visitFour of that crew have been there over twenty years

The window and doorway of an old independent shop on a quiet street, goods stacked behind the glass.

Every business I have looked at was somebody's whole life before it was a spreadsheet.

Plate III · Fourth business visited, Tiffin, Ohio · declined by me, 2025

02Enclosurewith this letter

What I am looking for, plainly.

Written down so you can rule me out in two minutes rather than two meetings. If your business sits outside these, say so and I will tell you who I think is a better fit.

Owner-operated, and profitable without heroics Ten years or more of trading, with earnings that do not depend on one contract, one customer or one unusually good year.

Somewhere I can drive to Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Kentucky or western Pennsylvania. I want to be in the building on an ordinary Tuesday, not on a quarterly visit.

iii

A business that would survive me learning it Manufacturing, distribution, specialty trades, business services. Repeat customers, real equipment, a crew that has been there a while.

An owner who wants to hand it over, not just sell it I will pay a fair price. What I am really asking for is six to twelve months of your time on the way out.

One. Only one. Not a platform, not a roll-up, not the first of several. I intend to own and run this company for as long as I can work.

Figures are a screen, not a rule. I looked seriously at two businesses under this range and declined four comfortably inside it.

A wall of small labelled parts drawers in an old supply room, handles worn bright.

Plate IV Parts wall, the third business I visitedThird business visited, March 2025

03The letter,continued

Second —

You will get other letters. I have read some of them, because owners have shown them to me, and most are from people whose business model requires them to leave. I do not think that makes them bad buyers. It makes them a different thing from what I am offering, and you should know which one you are reading.

If you sell to me

One buyer, who signs, and who is there on the first Monday after close.
No investment committee. The person you negotiate with is the person who decides.
Your name stays over the door unless you would rather it did not.
No planned exit. I am not building toward a sale in year five.
Your people keep their jobs, their titles and their pay on day one.

If you sell to a fund

A deal team that hands you to an operating partner after close.
A mandate to exit in three to seven years, written before you met them.
Your company becomes an add-on to something with a different name.
Overhead consolidated into a shared services function in another state.
Nobody who was in the room at signing is in the building at year three.

04Backingthree people

Three people put up the money.

Not a fund. Three operators who have each run something like what I am trying to buy, and who invested on the condition that I run it myself.

Robert Langford

Thirty-one years in industrial distribution; ran a four-branch fastener business in Indiana and sold it to his own managers.

Patricia Osei

CFO of a family-held Midwest manufacturer through two recessions and one generational handover. Twenty-two years in the role.

David Richter

Bought and still operates two home-services companies in Kentucky. Advises on the first ninety days.

No committee, no fund documents, no third-party approval. They wrote commitments; the decision on any single business is mine.

Shelves of jars and tins in a working stockroom, stacked three deep and sorted by size.

Plate V Stockroom, Langford's branch in ElkhartCounted twice a year since 1991

05Scheduleenclosed

If you wrote back —

this is what would actually happen, written out because most owners have never sold a company and the uncertainty is the worst part of it. You can stop at any step and owe me nothing.

A phone call, with nothing attached

Forty-five minutes. You tell me what the business does and what you want to happen to it. I tell you whether I am a plausible buyer. No documents change hands.

Three years of financials, and one visit

If we both want to keep going, I sign your confidentiality agreement and read three years of statements. Then I come to you, on a normal working day, and walk the place.

A written offer you can read in one sitting

Price, structure, what happens to your staff, and what I am asking of you after close — on two pages, in plain sentences. If the answer is no, that is the end of it.

Diligence that does not disrupt your year

Accounting, legal and insurance review, run quietly. Your team does not need to know before you want them to. Sixty to ninety days, and I pay for it whether or not we close.

Close, and then I show up

We tell your people together. I am in the building the next morning and every morning after that. You stay as long as we agreed and not one day longer than you want to.

06Replyby any means

If any of this sounds like your company, write back.

A first note does not have to say much. The name of the business, roughly what it does, and whether you are thinking about this year or in five. I answer every one myself, usually the same day, and I have never once passed a name to my backers without being asked to.

James Whitfield

Fieldstone Partners · Columbus, Ohio

P.S. If you are not selling and never will be, I would still like to hear what you built. A good part of what I have learned in two years came from owners who told me no.

A short row of shopfronts on a small-town street at dusk, windows lit from inside.

Whichever town it turns out to be, I intend to be on that street for a long time.

Plate VI · Main street, 5.40pm · nineteenth visit