Kindred Partners is a holding company

with our pRIVATE, PERMANENT CAPITAL WE ACQUIRE AND STEWARD EXCEPTIONAL BUSINESSES TO HOLD FOREVER

We aren’t traditional private equity. This is not high finance. Nor are we chasing a quick dollar.

Kindred Partners follows an old-fashioned approach, serving as perpetual and engaged owners of advantaged and durable businesses crafted by founders and operators who care deeply for their customers, team and communities.

If preserving and enriching the future of your business and its legacy matters to you, if you’re advising a seller, if you’re an operator or investor who would like to partner with us, or if we can be helpful in any way then we encourage you to read on and to reach out. We’d love to hear from you.

Owners

ABOUT US

Kindred Partners is a private, long-term holding company on a mission to acquire and nurture small and medium-sized businesses in Australia.

We aspire to be the preferred buyer of market-leading, enduringly profitable niche businesses and a trusted partner to sellers, and their advisors, who care what happens after the ink dries and value a safe, stable pair of hands as much as a fair deal.

Our approach is intentionally not for everyone.

Our permanent capital structure allows us to play the long game. We don’t think about fund structures or cycles. We think in generations, not quarters. We face no pressure to re-sell. We’re in for keeps.

Through the ups and downs we operate and invest to build value sustainably, preserving culture and values. Short-term behaviour - the lever, strip and flip model - is not our style.

Investing our private capital, we can be flexible, responsive and nimble.

CULTURE & VALUES

Our strategic and operational decisions and actions are downstream from our values. These ten values are our glue and guardrails.

Kindness: In life, the kindest person wins.
Trust: Reliable handshakes trump lengthy contracts.
Open: To curiosity, to change, to discussion, to learning, to feedback.
Compounding: Focussed and continuous incremental improvement.
Win-Win: Be helpful and create value for all stakeholders.
Alignment: Ownership and accountability.
Quality: Excellence is our standard.
Gumption: Handle hard well and keep showing up for each other.
Simplicity: Demanding mastery and creativity.
Fun: Revel in the journey.

INVESTMENT CRITERIA

Our open mandate allows us to consider any opportunity, but these are our preferred criteria.

Simple business offering an essential and non-deferrable product or service to its customers. To us, boring is beautiful.
Long and consistent history of $1-10 million in annual cash earnings generated from a broad set of recurring customers at healthy margins.
High - ideally improving - returns on equity while employing little debt.
Favourable long-term prospects given a strong, defensible market position and durable value proposition.
Proven, aligned managers and engaged employees with low turnover.
Headquarters in Australia.
Full or partial sale, with a preference for a majority position in partnership with the existing or incoming management team.

TEAM

Chris Wheldon, CFA - Director LinkedIn

After a few decades of leadership roles and successful investing alongside clients at one of Australia’s leading public equity asset managers, I co-founded Kindred Partners to apply a similar approach to private opportunities. This approach involves investing in and partnering with strong businesses run by great people, and going on a long-term journey together.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve always loved business and a team’s shared pursuit of creating value for those it interacts with. As the fourth generation in a family of entrepreneurs, perhaps starting KP was inevitable.

I’ve been incredibly fortunate to study and invest in businesses across all industries and all corners of the globe, to sit in the board rooms of some of the largest and most successful businesses on the planet, and to meet with and learn from the best. This grainy photo from March 2009 of a starry-eyed kid meeting his idol followed a lunch with the great man.