Levine Leichtman Capital Partners (LLCP) has sold Therapeutic Research Center to Colibri Group, a portfolio company of Gridiron Capital.
Therapeutic Research Center (TRC) is a research, analytic, and information services company that provides evidence-based drug therapy and medication management recommendations to healthcare professionals and institutions including pharmacists, pharmacy technicians, prescribers, and nurses. TRC’s company owned brands and products include Pharmacist’s Letter, Pharmacy Technician’s Letter, Prescriber Insights, NetCE, NatMed Pro, CriticalPoint, Pharmacy Technicians University, RxSelect, RxAdvanced, Bula, and QURE.
Since its founding in 1985, TRC has served more than one million healthcare professionals and nearly four thousand hospitals. The company, acquired by LLCP in September 2017 through its fifth fund, is led by CEO Wes Crews and is headquartered in Denver.
“We are grateful for LLCP’s support and guidance as their strategic insights and partnership approach contributed greatly to the transformation of TRC,” said Mr. Crews. “Together, we have realized our shared vision of helping clinicians operate at the top of their license and improve clinical outcomes, thereby unlocking tremendous value for all stakeholders. LLCP’s contributions will continue to be instrumental as we enter our next phase of growth.”
“We are proud to have supported TRC and its management team in building a market leading, clinician-centric training platform to solve healthcare’s critical workforce challenges. During our investment, TRC made significant investments to strengthen TRC’s leadership team, commercial operations, and new product development function, while also successfully completing four highly strategic acquisitions that greatly expanded our clinician base and bolstered our suite of product offerings,” said Matthew Rich, a partner at LLCP. “The business is well positioned for continued growth, and we wish Wes and the entire management team continued success in their next chapter with Colibri.”
Colibri operates a family of brands that provide online education for qualifying licensure and continuing education to professionals in the accounting, real estate, healthcare, financial services, valuation and property services, and teacher education end markets. The company also offers news, information and job opportunities alerts in its targeted sectors. Colibri, led by CEO Jeff James, is headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri.
Gridiron acquired Colibri from Quad-C in May 2019 and has completed numerous add-on acquisitions to the platform. “As our seventeenth strategic partnership since investing in Colibri, TRC marks a continuation of Colibri’s acquisition strategy to diversify end markets served, enhance product offerings and expand geographically,” said Will Hausberg, a senior managing director at Gridiron.
“We are proud of the collaboration between the Colibri and Gridiron teams to achieve this strategic milestone and are excited to welcome TRC to the team,” added Kevin Jackson, a managing partner at Gridiron.
In tandem with the acquisition of TRC, NB Capital Solutions acquired a minority stake in Colibri with Gridiron retaining a majority stake in Colibri.
“We are excited to partner with management, as well as Gridiron, to support Colibri’s continued growth. We have long admired Colibri’s demonstrated track record of developing and acquiring market-leading professional education brands and believe the company’s solutions will continue to be valued by customers in the years to come,” said J.T. Munch, a managing director at NB Capital Solutions.
NB Capital Solutions, a unit of Neuberger Berman, provides capital to private equity-owned companies to enable sponsors and management teams to achieve long-term objectives. The unit manages $6 billion in capital commitments and has made investments in over 90 companies across its two funds. Neuberger Berman, founded in 1939, is a private, independent, employee-owned investment manager. The firm manages equities, fixed income, private equity and hedge fund portfolios for institutions and advisors worldwide with $439 billion in assets under management as of September 20, 2023. The firm has offices in 26 countries and is headquartered in New York City.
LLCP invests in US and Europe-based middle-market companies across numerous industries including franchising, business services, education, engineered products, healthcare, and light manufacturing. Since its founding in 1984 by Arthur Levine and Lauren Leichtman, LLCP has managed $14.1 billion of institutional capital across 15 investment funds and has invested in over 100 portfolio companies. LLCP currently has $9.3 billion of assets under management with offices in Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Charlotte, Miami, London, Stockholm, The Hague and Frankfurt.
Morgan Stanley & Co. was the lead financial advisor to TRC with support from William Blair & Company and Deloitte Corporate Finance.
Houlihan Lokey served as Colibri and Gridiron’s financial advisor and its exclusive placement agent in the purchase of TRC.
© 2023 Private Equity Professional | November 29, 2023
