Wellspring acquires Caring Brands, H&F and EQT jointly pursue Zooplus

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The Wire

Oct. 25, 2021

Wellspring clinches third home care deal with Caring Brands, H&F and EQT jointly bid for Zooplus, VSS makes 3x-plus on Coretelligent

Happy Monday, hubsters!

One repeat investor in and around healthcare in the home is back for more.

Wellspring Capital Management has acquired Levine Leichtman's Caring Brands, a franchisor of home healthcare across the US, UK and Ireland, and Australia, according to people familiar with the matter. Home health has long been the preferred setting of care for patients, but this trend has witnessed accelerating adoption and investor excitement through the pandemic. Wellspring has supported the industry since May 2014, when it invested in Great Lakes Caring. More recently, it sold a majority stake in Help at Home to Centerbridge Partners and Vistria Group at an approximately $1.4 billion enterprise value, retaining a minority stake, PE Hub wrote. For financials and more on Caring Brands, check out my full report.

Compromise: Two private equity giants intent on investing in the popular pet products industry are no longer competing against one another, but have joined hands with an increased offer for Germany’s Zooplus. Hellman & Friedman and EQT launched an increased and final offer for Zooplus of 480 euros per share. The deal values the German pet food retailer at 3.7 billion euros ($4.3 billion). For EQT, the deal is unique in that the global investor is the majority owner in nearly every transaction it pursues (there are exceptions). This time around it would become a jointly controlling partner with equal governance rights alongside H&F. Read more on PE Hub.

Return: VSS Capital Partners generated 3x to 4x its money with its majority sale of Coretelligent, after growing the cybersecurity specialist organically and through M&A during its five-year hold, a source familiar with the deal told PE Hub. VSS, remaining a minority investor, will look to ride the company’s continued momentum. Read more on PE Hub.

That’s it for me! Have a great week ahead, and as always, write to me at [email protected] with any tips, comments or just to say hello!

Read the full wire commentary on PE Hub...

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