Wealth Segment Guide
How to Research Private Business Owner Prospects
Private company owners are the hardest wealth segment to rate accurately — and the most rewarding when you get it right. There's no 10-K, no proxy filing, no public stock ticker. Oriel pulls from sources most prospect research tools ignore.
What Oriel looks at
Secretary of State filings
Officer and registered-agent records across all 50 states, cross-referenced to identify entities the prospect controls.
D&B and ZoomInfo firmographics
Revenue estimates, employee counts, and industry codes used as inputs to a multiple-based valuation.
Industry-specific revenue multiples
EBITDA and revenue multiples by NAICS code, sourced from recent middle-market transaction data.
Property and UCC filings
Real estate holdings and secured lending records that confirm or contradict reported business scale.
Local business press
Regional Business Journals, trade publications, and chamber announcements that surface ownership transitions and expansions.
Where ChatGPT typically fails
- Hallucinates company financials when no public filings exist.
- Confuses the prospect with a similarly-named executive at a different firm.
- Cannot distinguish minority equity from full ownership.
- Assigns an arbitrary capacity rating with no methodology trail.
Sample brief excerpt
Excerpt — capacity summary
Capacity rating: $2.5M – $5M (5-year)Wealth basis: 100% owner of Midwest Industrial Components, LLC (est. revenue $40M, EBITDA ~$6M, applied 5.5x multiple → enterprise value ~$33M, net of estimated debt ~$28M attributable equity).
Confirming signals: Personal residence assessed at $3.2M (Cook County), second home in Harbor Springs, MI ($1.8M). Two aircraft registered to a related LLC. No public philanthropy above $25K, suggesting significant headroom.
Methodology note: Revenue estimate triangulated from D&B, employee count (~180 per LinkedIn), and one trade-press profile from 2024.