I would imagine he meant equity

10-20% of the business is vague enough to make me highly suspicious FWIW. In my view, if he was really serious about putting out feelers in reaching some sort of reasonable deal, he would be a lot more explicit in what he was actually offering. If he came out and stated that he was offering a 10-20% equity stake (I'll consider 20% thank you ver much), the specifics of that would have its own set of issues and questions. So it doesn't seem like he is putting many cards out on the table and thus I am not making any assumptions about what he means by "10-20% of the business." Being up front about the compensation an offer entails != revealing product secrets, etc.