VetCor Group Holdings, one of the largest operators of veterinary hospitals in the US, has completed a majority recapitalization led by Harvest Partners and Cressey & Company. Cressey & Company first invested in VetCor in February 2010 and maintains an equity ownership in the business.
VetCor owns and operates 137 veterinary hospitals across 19 states that provide general medical and surgical services for pets, as well as pharmacy needs and ancillary services such as boarding and grooming. The company has approximately 450 veterinarians and a total staff of 2,400. VetCor was founded in 1997 and is headquartered south of Boston in Hingham, MA (www.vetcor.com).
VetCor is led by CEO & President Dan Adams. “Given VetCor’s success, Dan Adams and his partners at Cressey had their choice of private equity firms with whom to partner. We are both thrilled and honored that they chose Harvest for VetCor’s next chapter of growth,” said Jay Wilkins, Senior Managing Director at Harvest Partners.
Harvest Partners currently manages approximately $2 billion of equity and structured capital and is investing its sixth private equity fund. Harvest targets investments in companies with $20 million to $75 million of EBITDA and total enterprise values of $100 million to $750 million. Sectors of interest include industrial & energy services; manufacturing & distribution; consumer & business services; and healthcare services. The firm was founded in 1981 and is based in New York with an additional office in Palo Alto (www.harvestpartners.com).
“VetCor is one of the few scale platforms in the highly attractive and fragmented veterinary services space. We are excited to partner with Dan and Cressey to support the company’s consolidation strategy in this stable and growing market,” said Ira Kleinman, Senior Managing Director at Harvest Partners.
Cressey & Company’s generally seeks control-oriented investments in companies with enterprise values at the time of investment of between $50 million and $300 million. Sectors of interest include healthcare and information technology. The firm has offices in Chicago and Nashville (www.cresseyco.com).
“We’ve enjoyed a terrific partnership with Dan and his team over the past five years, having built the business into a quality-focused platform in a consolidating space. Harvest provides great insight and expertise in multi-site businesses, and we are excited to partner with them to support the continued growth of VetCor,” said Merrick Axel, Partner at Cressey.
Jefferies acted as exclusive financial advisor to VetCor and the senior debt was arranged by Golub Capital.
© 2015 PEPD • Private Equity’s Leading News Magazine • 4-21-15
