Palamon Capital Partners has completed the sale of SARquavitae, an elderly care provider in Spain for EUR550 million.
Palamon sold SARquavitae’s operating business to GeriaVi, which holds Geriatros, another leading player in the Spanish elderly care market, and is a subsidiary of DomusVi (a PAI Partners portfolio company) for EUR440 million.
SARquavitae’s property companies were sold to Eurosic Lagune, a third party real estate investor, in a separate transaction prior to the sale. Both sales have together generated a combined investment return of 3.0x for Palamon.
SARquavitae is the largest elderly care services provider in Spain, operating 88 facilities nationwide and is active in residential facilities, home care, tele-assistance and the provision of at-home medical services. The company employs approximately 12,000 staff and services 200,000 people per year.
Palamon originally invested in SARquavitae in 2009 having identified the opportunity to build a national champion of scale in the fragmented Spanish elderly care sector. Ageing demographics, shifts in social structure and regulatory reform created an ideal environment in which to rapidly grow the business both organically and through acquisitions.
In 2011 the company completed the acquisition of Mapfre Quavitae, making it the largest player in the market.
Over Palamon’s hold period, SARquavitae grew revenues from EUR127 million to more than EUR330 million and more than tripled EBITDA.
Julian Carreras, partner at Palamon, says: “The sale of our investment in SARquavitae represents another impressive outcome for Palamon, generating a 3.0x return for our investors. It underlines the power of our original investment thesis, which predicted the growth in the Spanish elderly care market. We would like to remember at this time Higinio Raventos, founder of SARquavitae, who sadly passed away last year and to thank the management team for building a highly effective working relationship during this period and wish them every success with their new partners.”
Antoni Soler Vicens, CFO of SARquavitae, says: “Palamon has been a highly supportive partner and we are delighted with the success of this transaction for our company. We are proud to have built SARquavitae to be the leading operator in the Spanish market not only by size and capability, but also in terms of the quality of care provided. We now look forward to continuing the development of the company during the next stage of growth as part of a pan-European business.”
Aymar Hénin, DomusVi group CEO, says: "We are very excited with the acquisition of SARquavitae, which creates a new leader in the Spanish market, and confirms our group’s position as one of the leaders in elderly care in Europe.”
