Given all the benefits of having a private equity firm as your partner, why would you even finance a company without one? We put that question to Brett Hickey, the CEO of Star Mountain Capital, who specializes in this sector.

“There’s a lot of hype around non-sponsored transactions,” he told us. “It’s definitely buyer beware. If you’re a lender to these companies, there are many considerations you should keep in mind:

“First, do you have the expertise to do the additional due diligence to assess the operational, industry, management, legal and other risk-reward aspects of the company without the benefit of an experienced private equity sponsor?

“Second, do you have the operational resources to help develop or replace the management team, if necessary?

“Next, do the current owners