Audax Private Debt was the provider of a unitranche credit facility to back the recent buy of Genesee Scientific by LLR Partners. Audax Private Debt was the facilities’ Joint Lead Arranger and Bookrunner.
Genesee Scientific’s products include lab instruments and equipment, reagents, and consumables used in life sciences applications by pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, universities, medical research institutions and hospitals.
The company maintains more than 20,000 SKUs and has a unique specialty supplying equipment and supplies used by the Drosophila (fruit fly) research community. Drosophilae are widely used as a model organism in the field of genetics.
San Diego-headquartered Genesee Scientific was founded in 1995 by Ken Fry as a laboratory products distributor and today is one of the largest providers of life science consumables and equipment to the academic and biotech markets. At the close of the buy of Genesee Scientific, LLR named Sean Patrick, an industry veteran and former executive at Life Technologies and Antylia Scientific, as Genesee Scientific’s CEO.
“Genesee is uniquely positioned as a trusted consumable life science products provider to customers throughout the United States,” said Ryan Benedict, a managing director at Audax Private Debt. “We’re excited to work with LLR Partners and the Genesee team to help support the continued growth of the company.”
Philadelphia-based LLR makes minority or majority investments from $25 million to $200 million in companies that are active in the education, financial, healthcare, security, and software sectors. In October 2020, LLR held a final closing of its latest fund, LLR Equity Partners VI LP, with $1.8 billion in capital.
Audax Private Debt makes first-lien, stretch senior, unitranche, second lien, junior debt and equity co-investments in North American-based private equity sponsored middle-market companies. The lender was founded in 2000 and has invested $23 billion of capital in more than 900 companies backed by over 260 private equity sponsors. In May 2021, Audax Private Debt closed Audax Mezzanine Fund V LP with just over $1.8 billion in capital commitments. Today, the New York-based lender has more than 40 investment professionals and 80 total employees.
Audax Private Debt is part of Audax Group, an investor in middle-market companies that have from $8 million to $50 million in EBITDA and enterprise values of $50 million to $400 million. Sectors of interest include business and consumer services; energy; healthcare; technology, media and telecom; and industrials including chemicals, infrastructure, and building materials. Audax, with offices in Boston, New York, and San Francisco, is currently investing out of its $3.5 billion, sixth private equity fund.
© 2021 Private Equity Professional | October 29, 2021
