PE Structural Underwriting™

You do not need another diligence checklist. You need an IC-ready commitment architecture.

A Structural Underwriting™ application · Independent sponsors & lower-middle-market PE

An integrated evidence-to-commitment layer for independent sponsors, lower-middle-market private equity, PE-backed founders and portfolio leaders who need investment-thesis assumptions, diligence findings, obligations, risk transfer and Day-1 execution dependencies to resolve into one defensible commitment architecture.

This does not replace traditional diligence. Legal, QoE, tax, technology, insurance and specialist workstreams stay exactly where they are. PE Structural Underwriting™ integrates what they produce into a single commitment structure the investment committee can act on.

The job to be done

One question decides whether the committee can commit.

Before an investment committee authorizes a difficult-to-reverse commitment, do the financial, commercial, legal, technology, operational, regulatory, governance and execution assumptions resolve into one defensible commitment architecture?

In lower-middle-market transactions the workstreams are usually competent and the integration is usually missing. Findings sit in separate reports, remedies are described but not attached to instruments, obligations survive closing without named owners, and Day-1 dependencies surface after the wire. PE Structural Underwriting™ closes that gap without duplicating any specialist scope.

What StratzGroup integrates

Seven inputs, one commitment architecture.

The commitment architecture

01
Thesis
The assumptions the return actually depends on.
02
Evidence
What each specialist workstream proved — and did not.
03
Dependencies
What must hold, in what order, for the thesis to survive.
04
Risk transfer
What moves to price, paper, insurance or escrow.
05
Day-1 / 100
Execution readiness for the first hundred days.
06
IC gate
A pre-sign / pre-fund decision the committee can defend.
Priority use cases

Where the commitment architecture earns its place.

  1. Independent sponsor / lower-middle-market acquisition.
  2. PE principal or founder rollover, co-investment or guarantee.
  3. Portfolio-company add-on acquisition.
  4. Value-creation commitment underwriting.
  5. Exit-readiness structural underwriting.
Best-fit triggers
When to bring us in

Pre-LOI, pre-IC, live acquisition, founder rollover or co-investment, add-on acquisition, value-creation plan, and exit readiness — anywhere a commitment is about to become difficult to reverse.

Core outputs
What the committee receives

PE Commitment Rapid Screen™, PE Decision Book™, cross-diligence issue and remedy architecture, and pre-sign / pre-fund decision gates.

Product ladder

Six engagements, scaled to how close the commitment is.

  1. PE Commitment Rapid Screen™
    A fast structural read of the commitment: thesis dependencies, evidence gaps, unowned obligations and the timing events that harden the decision.
  2. PE Decision Book™
    The integrated commitment record for the investment committee — issues, remedies, owners, evidence grades and the gate conditions attached to each.
  3. Transaction Structural Underwriting™
    Full pre-sign underwriting of a live acquisition, reconciling every diligence workstream into one defensible architecture through signing and funding.
  4. Value-Creation Commitment Underwriting™
    Underwriting the value-creation plan as a commitment: what the plan obligates, what it depends on, who owns delivery, and what evidence supports the assumed uplift.
  5. Add-On Acquisition Structural Screen™
    A repeatable screen for portfolio-company add-ons, so each bolt-on is underwritten against integration capacity rather than only price and fit.
  6. Exit Readiness Structural Underwriting™
    Structural underwriting ahead of a process, surfacing the evidence, obligations and dependencies a buyer’s diligence will reach before it reaches them.
Scope boundary

Integration is the service. Opinions stay with the licensed professionals.

What StratzGroup does not provide

StratzGroup does not provide legal opinions, QoE or accounting opinions, valuation opinions, investment banking, regulated investment advice, engineering opinions, brokerage or insurance advice. Structural Underwriting integrates evidence and decision dependencies while specialist opinions remain owned by the appropriate licensed professionals.

Start with a PE Commitment Rapid Screen™: a structured read of the transaction in front of you — where the thesis depends on unproven assumptions, which diligence findings remain unreconciled, which obligations survive closing without an owner, and whether the commitment can be gated before the next timing event.

Structural underwriting, not legal, investment, accounting, QoE, valuation, engineering, brokerage or insurance advice.

Ralph Kindred, J.D., MBA
Founder & Managing Director
StratzGroup Holdings, LLC
rkindred@stratzgroup.com
Chicago, IL
StratzGroup Holdings, LLC
(312) 273-9929
rkindred@stratzgroup.com
Dallas–Fort Worth, TX
StratzGroup Holdings, LLC
(214) 302-7447
rkindred@stratzgroup.com