Archives for February 9, 2023

Thompson Street Enters Biosafety Sector

by

Thompson Street Capital Partners (TSCP) has invested in Sabai Global, a provider of biosafety consulting services.

Sabai operates through three subsidiaries – Clinical Biosafety Services, Castle IRB, and Shield Consulting – and provides regulatory review and biosafety consulting services to pharmaceutical sponsors, contract research organizations, academic health systems and clinical research site networks. The company’s complementary services are used to facilitate regulatory approval and accelerate clinical research timelines for drug development.

Sabai, founded in 2017, is led by CEO Chris Jenkins and is headquartered near St. Louis in Chesterfield, Missouri.

“Clinical Research and specifically the unique regulatory elements of biosafety and human research protections are all around expertise and people. Conducting clinical research in the areas of oncology, rare disease and infectious disease as our primary indications, requires talented colleagues, a shared vision, and a deep knowledge of the life sciences industry,” said Mr. Jenkins. “We chose TSCP as our partner to continue our growth in supporting these exciting therapeutic areas, especially in cell and gene therapy, because of their past, present, and future focus in supporting the life sciences companies they invest in, which now include Sabai.”

“Our team has worked hard to identify an asset that serves the rapidly growing cell and gene therapy market and was extremely pleased to find one led by a CEO as passionate as Chris in the St. Louis area,” said Matt Scherrer, a managing director at TSCP. “We are proud to support Sabai’s continued growth as they help bring the most cutting-edge, life-saving treatments to market in an efficient, safe, and ethical manner.”

St. Louis-based TSCP makes equity investments of $50 million to $250 million in companies with EBITDA between $5 million and $50 million. Sectors of interest include healthcare and life science services, software and technology services, and business and consumer products and services.

“As a founder-owned and operated business in the life sciences sector, Sabai represents an excellent fit for the TSCP portfolio” said John Kane, a Sabai board member and TSCP executive advisor. “I’m looking forward to working closely with Chris and his team as they expand Sabai’s leading suite of biosafety, ethical, and regulatory review solutions.”

In August 2022, TSCP closed its oversubscribed sixth investment fund, Thompson Street Capital Partners VI LP, with total commitments exceeding its $1.5 billion target. TSCP’s earlier fund closed in July 2018 at its hard cap of $1.15 billion.

© 2023 Private Equity Professional | February 9, 2023

Shore Sells Argentum Medical to Mountaingate’s BioDerm

by

Shore Capital Partners has sold Argentum Medical, a manufacturer of wound care products, to BioDerm, a portfolio company of Mountaingate Capital.

Argentum’s product lines include surgical, burn care, wound care, negative wound pressure therapy, dressings for IVs and catheters, and antimicrobial skin and wound cleansers. The company’s core brand is Silverlon which uses a silver-plated nylon matrix that provides the antimicrobial properties of silver ions to wound dressings.

Source: Argentum Medical

Argentum’s customers include the US military, international accounts in over 30 countries, and approximately 2,000 domestic hospitals. The company, led by CEO Raul Brizuela, was founded in 2001 and is headquartered near Chicago in Geneva, Illinois.

Mr. Brizuela will serve as the CEO of the combined BioDerm/Argentum platform with its senior management team comprised of executives from both companies. Later this year, the company will look to rebrand and establish a new name that reflects the strengths of the Argentum and BioDerm portfolios of products.

Shore Capital acquired Argentum in August 2017. “Shore Capital was an invaluable partner committed to the success of Argentum and its team,” said Mr. Brizuela. “Together, we aspired to improve the quality of service and outcomes for patients, while decreasing the cost of care and mitigating risk. I am thrilled to see the impact of our products and look forward to furthering these results in our next stage of growth.”

BioDerm is a provider of disposable medical devices and wound care supplies. The company’s products are used for urinary management, securement, infection control and skin protection. BioDerm’s external catheter products are sold under the Men’s Liberty brand (for home use) and Men’s Liberty Acute brand (for institutional and hospital use). BioDerm’s other products include CathGrip adhesive securement products, FreeDerm adhesive remover, and BioPlus skin preparation wipes.

BioDerm also provides wound care dressing change kits to patients with ventricular assist devices (mechanical pumps used to support heart function and blood flow). BioDerm, led by CEO Gaet Tyranski, was founded in 1991 and is headquartered near Tampa in Largo, Florida.

BioDerm was acquired by Mountaingate in December 2020 as its tenth platform investment for its debut fund which closed in August 2017 at an oversubscribed hard cap of $395 million.

“The combination of Argentum and BioDerm accelerates our strategy to innovate patient care with sophisticated technologies and expand our growth in the wound care and international markets,” said Stew Fisher, a managing director at Mountaingate. “The two companies share a common culture focused on improving patient outcomes through innovation and ingenuity, while also providing industry leading levels of customer support.”

Denver-based Mountaingate invests in companies that have from $5 million to $25 million in EBITDA and are active in the marketing services, specialty manufacturing, specialty distribution, and business services sectors at an oversubscribed hard cap of $395 million.

“Shore Capital is immensely proud of what Raul and the management team built,” said Don Pierce, a partner at Shore and the chairman of Argentum. “We are excited for Argentum to continue providing significant value to the healthcare system as an international industry leader in infection prevention management.”

Shore Capital invests in lower middle-market healthcare, food and beverage, business services, and real estate-related companies that have $5 million to $100 million of revenue.

In April 2019, Shore closed its third healthcare-focused fund, Shore Capital Healthcare Partners Fund III LP, with $293 million of capital, and its inaugural food and beverage fund, Shore Capital Food & Beverage Partners Fund I LP, with $148 million of capital. Shore Capital is headquartered in Chicago and has more than $3 billion of equity under management.

Moelis & Company was the financial advisor to Argentum on this transaction.

© 2023 Private Equity Professional | February 9, 2023

HCPI’s Prince Acquires Precision Shapes

by

Prince Industries, a machining and sheet metal fabrication company and a portfolio company of HC Private Investments, has acquired Precision Shapes.

Precision Shapes (PSI) is a provider of complex material and tight tolerance precision machining services, including continuous long-length milling, to companies operating in the aerospace and defense sector.

Source: Precision Shapes

PSI was founded in 1941 and operates a AS9100-certified facility located 10 miles from Cape Canaveral in Titusville, Florida. HC Private Investments (HCPI) and Isleworth Capital Partners acquired Prince Industries in May 2022 in partnership with CEO Mark Miller and the founding Miller family.

Prince designs and manufactures precision machined and sheet metal fabricated components and assemblies used in telecommunication, hydraulic, medical, dental, computer-peripheral equipment, and electronic applications. The company’s service span from engineering and product design to material selection, process mapping, welding, powder coating and assembly. Prince also provides joysticks and check valves used in the hydraulics and construction equipment sector though its QP Hydraulics division. Prince was founded by Ed Miller in 1959 and has approximately 260 employees and three facilities located near Chicago in Carol Stream (headquarters), Batavia, Illinois, and Shanghai, China.

The combination of Prince Industries and Precision Shapes creates a company with more than 300 employees and four manufacturing facilities.

“The acquisition of PSI significantly enhances Prince’s capabilities and penetration in the growing aerospace and defense market,” said Mark Miller, the CEO of Prince. “Like Prince, PSI was family-owned and managed by two sisters, Susan Palma and Cheryl Cleveland, who worked at the company for over 40 years. We are delighted to partner with Susan, Cheryl, and PSI’s talented management team to offer increased capabilities and a national manufacturing footprint to our combined customer base.”

“We are excited to partner with Prince and HCPI as we look to support the next phase of PSI’s growth,” said Ms. Palma. “We quickly recognized they provide us not only with increased capabilities and scale, but also share our values and unwavering commitment to customers that will benefit the people we serve.”

HCPI makes investments between $10 million and $40 million in lower-middle market manufacturing companies within the consumer and industrial markets that have revenues from $10 million to $75 million and EBITDA from $3 million and $10 million. HCPI’s investments can take the form of control equity, growth equity, structured equity and junior debt. HCPI was formed in June 2017 by HC Technologies, a Chicago-based financial trading firm led by Joe Niciforo with offices in New York, London and Singapore.

HCPI continues to seek complementary add-on acquisitions in aerospace and defense and medical end-markets.

TREP Advisors was the financial advisor to PSI and Wintrust Financial provided debt financing for the transaction.

© 2023 Private Equity Professional | February 9, 2023

Brown Gibbons Lang Continues Build

by

Brown Gibbons Lang & Company (BGL) has added Craig Decker to its team as a managing director within its services vertical. Mr. Decker will be based in BGL’s New York City office.

Prior to joining BGL and since December 2018, Mr. Decker was a managing director at Headhaul Capital Partners, a Greenwich, Connecticut-based merchant banking firm specializing in the transportation and logistics sector. In July 2018, Mr. Decker founded CMD Advisory, a provider of advisory and private capital services to public and private companies operating in the transportation industry. From 2012 to 2018, he was the head of investment banking at New York City-based Wolfe Capital Markets & Advisory, the broker-dealer affiliate of transportation and logistics sector focused Wolfe Research. Mr. Decker has his undergraduate degree from Villanova University and his MBA from New York University.

The hiring of Mr. Decker follows the July 2022 addition of Eliott Musick from Macquarie Capital where he led the firm’s industrial and infrastructure services practice.

“On the heels of Eliott Musick joining our services vertical to lead our facility and field services business, Craig expands our ongoing efforts within infrastructure services through his impressive career in transportation, logistics, and supply chain,” said Effram Kaplan, the head of BGL’s services vertical and lead within its environmental and industrial services business. “Craig enables us to scale our knowledge and skills across our client base and bring additional ideas and opportunities to the market. We are very pleased to welcome him to BGL and excited about the additional resources we can offer our clients.”

“BGL has demonstrated impressive growth over the past several years,” said Mr. Decker. “I’m thrilled to be joining a team of this caliber and look forward to adding to the momentum of the firm’s expansion in New York City and beyond.”

Brown Gibbons Lang is a mid-market investment bank that specializes in mergers and acquisitions, divestitures, capital markets, financial restructurings, valuations, and fairness opinions. The firm was founded in 1989 and has investment banking offices in Chicago, Cleveland, Los Angeles, and New York City.

© 2023 Private Equity Professional | February 9, 2023