Aug 28, 2023
Next week, we’ll release the first episode of Season 3 of
Private Equity Deals, this time focusing on deals in the middle
market.
As an interlude between Season 2 and 3, this week’s show is a
classic – it’s Bain Capital and KKR’s take private of Hospital
Corporation of America (HCA) in 2006. The $33 billion club
deal was the largest private equity transaction in history at the
time and was significantly larger than any deal since KKR’s famous
run at RJR Nabisco in the late 1980s. The HCA deal showed the
private equity industry the scale of what was possible and set the
stage for both mega buyouts and public to private deals ever
since.
My guest is Chris Gordon, a Partner and Co-Head of Private Equity
in North America for Bain Capital. Bain Capital today is one of the
world’s largest private, multi-asset investing firms that oversees
over $165 billion in assets. Seventeen years ago, Chris was a
younger member of Bain Capital’s HCA deal team.
HCA is one of the nation’s leading healthcare services providers,
with over 182 hospitals and 2,300 sites of care in 20 states and
the United Kingdom. Its origins date back to 1968 when it was one
of the first hospital companies in the United States.
Our conversation covers HCA’s history, the private equity
environment in the mid-2000s, and the impetus for the HCA buyout.
We discuss the complexity of navigating a large-scale transaction,
conducting due diligence discretely, navigating the financial
crisis, and what happened to the company. We turn to HCA’s return
to the public markets through an IPO in 2011, Bain Capital’s
eventual exit of the investment, and the implications of the deal
on the firm and industry.
For full show notes, visit the episode webpage here.
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