Bowmark sells Care Fertility to Silverfleet

Kenny Wastell
25 April 2019

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Bowmark Capital has sold Care Fertility, a UK-headquartered fertility clinic group, to Silverfleet Capital.

Financial details of the transaction remain undisclosed, though a recent report by Unquote sister publication Mergermarket cited an industry source with expertise in healthcare who said the business may attract bids of around 8x its pro-forma EBITDA of £11m.

The deal is the ninth investment from Silverfleet Capital Partners II – which held a final close on €870m in 2015 – while Bowmark was invested in Care Fertility via £265m vehicle Bowmark IV, which closed in 2008.

DBowmark supported the £60m management buyout of Care Fertility from General Healthcare Group in 2012. During the vendor's seven-year holding period, the company acquired new sites - adding clinics in London, Tunbridge Wells, Bath, Birmingham and Dublin - and invested in the upgrade of existing facilities. It also undertook product development on its proprietary time-lapse embryo imaging technology CareMaps.

Under Silverfleet's tenure, Care Fertility will look to continue adding to its number of clinics, partly via bolt-on acquisitions, with a view to expanding internationally. It will also continue investing in research and development.

Debt
Apollo Global Management provided a debt package to support the transaction.

Company
Founded in 1997, Nottingham-headquartered Care Fertility is a fertility clinic group focusing on IVF treatments, fertility preservation procedures and genetic diagnosis and screening. The business operates nine fully-serviced fertility clinics and 13 satellite facilities across the UK and Ireland.

People
Bowmark Capital - David Torbet (partner).
Silverfleet Capital - Alfa Chan (partner); Sumit Dheir (principal); Peter Kisenyi (investment executive); Dominic Mitchell (associate).
Care Fertility - Simon Fishel (founder); David Burford (CEO).

Advisers
Equity - Lincoln International (M&A); PwC (financial due diligence, commercial due diligence, tax); Ropes & Gray (legal); Deloitte (debt advisory); WA Communications (political due diligence); Intuitus (IT due diligence); AJ Gallagher (insurance due diligence).
Vendor - KPMG (corporate finance).
Management - Deloitte (corporate finance).