Law firm Reed Smith has advised Sovereign Capital Partners on the sale of City & County Healthcare Group (C&C) to Graphite Capital Management.
Sovereign first acquired C&C in 2009. Since then, C&C has extended its services to include children and adults with learning disabilities, expanding from 13 branches to 64, and is now Britain’s fourth largest domiciliary care provider.
The Reed Smith team was led by partner Perry Yam, senior associate James Cross and associate Emilia Valvano. The team advised the shareholders of C&C on the sale and advised management, led by CEO Craig Rushton, on its re-investment into Graphite’s purchasing entity.
The sale was run as a dual-track auction and IPO process, including a formal auction with invitations to selected bidders.
Perry Yam, head of private equity for Europe and the Middle East, says: “The private equity market remains challenging. Completing a leading healthcare transaction is very rewarding and we were delighted to be able to demonstrate our capabilities in this area. We drew on our healthcare sector expertise, our experience of representing management teams and our existing relationships with both Sovereign and Graphite to ensure the deal process was executed smoothly and expeditiously to meet the time-frame demand. As private equity houses look to return capital to investors, we expect to see an increase in secondary transactions in the market in 2014.”
Dominic Dalli, of Sovereign Capital, says: “Perry and his team had built a strong relationship with the management team of City & County over many years, and therefore ensured a smooth run to the completion of the secondary buyout. Whilst our dual-track exit process was a complex exit route, the speed of delivery of the private equity track, assisted by Reed Smith, ensured that this route was the successful one.”
