Terms of engagement

These are the working terms of engagement of Owner Universe. They set out how an engagement works. This page is not a contract and nothing on it binds either party. The signed agreement governs each engagement.

1. What Owner Universe does

Owner Universe identifies the privately owned companies in a client’s niche and region from public records, marks which are already acquired, contacts the remaining owners in the client’s name from a mailbox the client supplies, gets owner conversations booked on the client’s calendar through the client’s booking link and sends a weekly report.

2. What Owner Universe does not do

Owner Universe does not negotiate, value companies, advise on deal terms, represent sellers or take any fee tied to a transaction.

3. Fees

Proof Sprint: $7,500 or CA$10,500. Quarterly: $30,000 or CA$42,000 per quarter, paid in advance. Six months: $54,000 or CA$76,000, paid in advance. Annual: $96,000 or CA$136,000, paid in advance. Flat fees only. No success fee and no fee at closing.

Each package has a fixed list price in US dollars and a fixed list price in Canadian dollars. The client picks the currency on the order form. The fee is the list price in that currency. It is not converted or adjusted for any exchange rate, and the invoice and payment are in that currency.

Owner Universe invoices the fee when the order form is signed. Every package, the Proof Sprint included, is paid in full before the kickoff call. The kickoff call is held once payment, the intake form and mailbox access are all in. If payment arrives late, the kickoff call and the start move back with it.

Fees do not include taxes. Any tax that applies is added and shown on the invoice. The remedy under the Proof Sprint guarantee is further work at no additional charge. Any refund is as the signed agreement and the law provide.

4. Proof Sprint guarantee

At least three qualified owner conversations within the 30-day sprint, or Owner Universe keeps working at no additional charge until three are delivered, on the conditions set out in the agreement. Every conversation past three is included.

Every longer term carries the guarantee at the same rate: at least three qualified owner conversations in every 30 days, so nine for a quarter, 18 for six months and 36 for a year, and every conversation past that is included.

The 30 days start when the first message goes to an owner, after the client approves the universe and templates. A qualified conversation is a held call with an owner, or a person with authority to sell, who has said they are open to talking about a sale or investment, at a company that meets the client’s written criteria. A call the client cancels or misses, and does not rebook in the next 10 business days, also counts.

The extra work ends at the third conversation, when the client asks in writing to stop, or when the client declines a written proposal to widen the area or the criteria, made once every reachable owner has had the full sequence. No answer to that proposal for 10 business days counts as declining.

5. What the client supplies

The client sets its acquisition criteria in writing, in the order form and the intake form. A change to the criteria comes in writing and applies only to companies not yet contacted. The client supplies a mailbox on a domain it owns. Owner Universe gets access limited to sending approved messages and answering replies about scheduling. The client keeps administrator rights and can revoke that access at any time.

The client also gives its legal name, the sender’s name and title, the physical postal address to print in each message, a working booking link, and a list of companies and people it does not want contacted. The client attends the calls booked for it and is responsible for its own statements to owners. If an approval or access arrives late, the dates move back day for day.

6. Outreach in the client’s name

Every message goes out from the client’s mailbox, in the client’s name, and the client is its sender of record. The client approves each template in writing before use. Owner Universe sends nothing else apart from scheduling replies in an approved form. Each message names the client in the From line, has an accurate subject line, and carries the client’s postal address and a working opt-out.

Every message meets the CAN-SPAM Act, and each party follows the email and privacy laws that apply to it. Opt-outs are processed the same business day where possible, no later than 2 business days after receipt, and honoured for every client. Addresses come only from public sources or the client, never guessed or bought. Nothing is sent to a place in Schedule A or a Canadian province the agreement does not open. The client answers for the templates it approves and its own statements. Owner Universe answers for sending only approved templates and for opt-outs.

7. Data and confidentiality

Owner Universe owns the universe and its methods. The client gets a non-exclusive, perpetual licence to use the universe delivered to it, and the contact addresses delivered with the outreach log, for its own acquisition or investment purposes, and keeps them after the engagement ends. It may pass them on only to its advisers on a transaction with a company in the universe.

Client data, criteria included, belongs to the client and is used only for the service. Each party uses the other’s confidential information only for the engagement and protects it with at least reasonable care. Owner Universe names the client as a customer only with its written consent. At the end, the client revokes mailbox access and Owner Universe deletes the client’s criteria no later than 30 days after. Owner Universe deletes its own working copy of the universe 12 months after the end, or sooner if the client asks. The suppression list stays, so opted-out owners are not contacted again.

8. Liability, term and termination

A term starts when the first message goes to an owner. Nothing renews automatically. A further term needs a new signed order form. Either party may end an order form by written notice if the other commits a material breach and fails to cure it in the agreed period. Either party may pause outreach at once, and end the order form, on written advice from counsel or notice from a regulator that the work may need a licence or registration Owner Universe does not hold. At the end, outreach stops, Owner Universe answers replies for 10 business days, then client data is returned or deleted.

Each party’s total liability is capped as the agreement states. Neither party is liable for indirect loss, lost profits or a lost transaction, except breach of confidentiality, the indemnities, fraud or wilful misconduct. Nothing in these terms excludes or limits liability for bodily or moral injury, or for material injury caused by intentional or gross fault.

9. Governing law

These terms and each engagement are governed by the law of Quebec. The courts of the judicial district of Laval, Quebec, have jurisdiction over any dispute. For an engagement, the signed agreement and its order form are the whole agreement between the parties. A change binds only if it is in writing and signed by both. Where this page and the signed documents differ, the signed documents govern.

The parties have expressly wished that this agreement and related documents be drawn up in English.