Former US Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist is to join Chicago-based Cressey & Company, a recently formed private investment firm focused on the healthcare industry, as a partner.
Former US Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist is to join Chicago-based Cressey & Company, a recently formed private investment firm focused on the healthcare industry, as a partner.
Senator Frist will work with the firm’s experienced team to make new investments in promising healthcare companies as well as to provide clinical expertise and support to the firm’s portfolio companies.
Cressey & Company, including partners Bryan Cressey and Peter Ehrich, is focused on making equity investments in middle-market companies in a diverse range of segments of the US healthcare industry.
The team supports the managers of the companies in which it invests by helping identify, complete and integrate acquisitions, improve operations and accelerate growth. Underlying this focus is Cressey’s commitment to building enduring businesses dedicated to high quality care and clinical leadership.
"Senator Frist is a visionary and one of the most influential leaders in US healthcare, and we are pleased that he is a part of our team," says Bryan Cressey. "He has a unique combination of experiences – both as a practicing physician and as a former majority leader in the US Senate – that we believe will help us immensely as we identify and partner with management teams to transform growing healthcare businesses into world-class companies."
"Fundamental innovation in the US healthcare system is critical, particularly as it relates to quality and efficiency," comments Senator Frist, partner of Cressey & Company.
"My new colleagues have impressed me as having the skills and experience necessary to grow companies that provide innovative, quality care to patients. I’m excited to join the Cressey & Company team as we help build leading companies that will benefit and improve healthcare in America."
With his 1994 election to the US Senate, Senator Frist became the first practising physician to be elected to that body since 1928. He rose to Senate Majority Leader just eight years after his election, having served less time in Congress than anyone ever to hold that position.
Throughout his tenure, he has been at the forefront of major legislation on the financing, organization and delivery of healthcare. Fulfilling his pledge to serve just two terms, Senator Frist retired in 2007. He presently serves as the Frederick Schultz Class of 1951 visiting professor of International Economic Policy at Princeton University, teaching health economics at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.
