Referral partners
Send the file. Keep the relationship.
Most advisors have a client who needs capital they cannot arrange, or carries paper that is quietly deciding what the business can do. Citadel Ridge takes that file, runs it, and hands the relationship back. Partners are compensated out of the firm's own commission, never out of the client's pricing, and the firm does not cross sell a referred client into anything the referring advisor already provides.
6 partner types. 1 standard of conduct.
Who refers
6 seats at the table.
The file arrives differently from each, and so does the answer. What follows is what each partner typically sends and what comes back.
CPAs and tax advisors
You see the debit load on the bank statements before anyone else does, usually at the worst possible moment in the filing calendar. What you send: a client carrying advance positions, a client who cannot fund a tax liability, or a client whose bank declined a renewal. What comes back: a written read within 2 business days on what the file supports, and where a buyout retires the positions, a structure your client can actually plan around. The firm does not provide tax or accounting advice and does not touch the return.
M&A advisors and business brokers
Deals die in financing more often than in negotiation. What you send: a buyer who needs acquisition debt, a seller whose balance sheet will not survive diligence, or a transaction with a gap between senior capacity and the purchase price. What comes back: mezzanine, private credit or a senior process run against counterparties scored for appetite, plus a debt schedule and a credit memorandum built to institutional standard. The firm does not represent the other side of your transaction.
Equipment dealers and vendors
A quote that cannot be financed is a quote that does not close. What you send: a buyer who needs the unit financed, or a buyer whose credit will not clear the captive program. What comes back: term and equipment facilities placed with counterparties that have appetite for the asset class and the tier, sized to the invoice, with a straight answer on timing so you can plan delivery.
Private equity sponsors and independent sponsors
What you send: a platform or add on that needs senior or unitranche debt, a portfolio company that has outgrown its facility, or a recapitalization. What comes back: a competing placement process, term sheets compared on the full cost of each rather than the headline rate, and guarantee containment, covenants and reporting negotiated into the facility before closing. For sponsors without a committed fund, the firm runs the same process on a fixed fee mandate.
Commercial bankers
A decline is not a relationship ending event unless you let the client walk out with nothing. What you send: a client the credit box will not take today, typically for time in business, leverage, industry, or a single covenant. What comes back: a facility placed outside bank appetite, structured so the client is bankable again on a defined horizon, and returned to you when they are. The firm does not solicit the deposit relationship and says so in writing.
ISOs and funding shops
What you send: a merchant your funder panel cannot place, a file too large for revenue based paper, or a merchant stacked past the point where another position helps. What comes back: a position buyout where there is collateral, a term or private credit placement where the financials carry it, and a straight decline where neither is true. Syndication and participation are not offered.
Compensation
Paid out of our side, not added to theirs.
The arrangement in plain terms.
Referral partners are compensated under a written referral agreement, as a share of the commission Citadel Ridge receives from the funding counterparty at closing. The referral fee is paid out of the firm's own compensation. It does not increase the rate, the factor, the fee or the amount your client repays, and the firm's compensation on the transaction is disclosed to the client in writing before they sign, exactly as it is on any other file. See how we get paid for the full mechanics.
Partners are not paid for introductions that do not close, the firm does not collect any fee from your client at any point on a placement, and no partner is asked to hold client funds or to present terms on the firm's behalf. Some states regulate who may broker commercial financing and who may be compensated for it; where a partner arrangement touches those rules, the agreement is written to fit them or it is not written at all. The state disclosures page sets out the landscape.
Conduct
What the firm will not do with your client.
The reason most advisors will not refer a financing relationship is that they have been burned by one. These are commitments, in the referral agreement, not courtesies.
No cross selling into your lane
The firm does not offer your client tax, audit, accounting, legal, bookkeeping, insurance, wealth or banking services, and does not introduce them to anyone who does. Where the file needs work in your discipline, it comes back to you.
No marketing list
A referred client is not added to a prospecting list, a dialing campaign, or a text program. Contact is about their file, and it stops when the file does.
You stay on the file
You are copied on the read, on the offer comparison, and on the closing schedule unless your client asks otherwise. Nothing is presented to your client that you have not seen.
A decline comes back as a decline
If the file does not support a transaction, you are told that plainly and quickly, with the reason, rather than having your client worked for months on paper that was never going to close.
Referral arrangements are documented before any file is worked. Citadel Ridge LLC is a commercial finance brokerage and capital advisory firm; it is not a lender, a law firm, an accounting firm, a broker dealer, or a registered investment adviser, and it does not pay for introductions to securities transactions or for anything requiring a license it does not hold.
Start with the file
A straight read within 2 business days.
Send the basics through the intake form: what the file supports, what is missing, and the next step if there is one. If we are not the right desk for it, we say so.