Advent in £1.5bn Priory Group exit

Nasdaq-listed Acadia will pay £1.28bn in cash for the assets, as well as issue 5.36 million shares worth around £230m. Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Jefferies Finance will provide the debt financing for Acadia's cash portion of the deal. Of the purchase price, £925m will go to pay off Priory's debt.

The exit brings to a close the latest chapter of private equity ownership for Priory, which was acquired by Advent in 2011, but has been in PE hands on and off since 1996.

Previous funding
Advent bought Priory from RBS in January 2011, in a £925m EV deal with commitments from the GP's Global Private Equity Fund VI vehicle.

Priory had ended up in the hands of RBS following the bank's 2007 acquisition of Dutch bank ABN Amro. The seller had paid British GP Doughty Hanson £875m for the healthcare group in 2005.

Doughty made 5x money on the sale to ABN, three years after it had bought Priory from Westminster Healthcare in a £371m transaction.

The independent London-based healthcare company had acquired Priory from a consortium led by HgCapital in 2000, four years after the GP and the management team – led by former managing director Ian Reynolds – completed an £88m BIMBO for the business, then the subsidiary of US-based Community Psychiatric Centers.

Company
Priory is a behavioral healthcare services provider based in the UK, offering healthcare, education and children's services, adult care and elderly services.

The company operates 322 psychiatric hospitals, treatment centres and outpatient clinics, with approximately 7,200 beds. In the UK, the company is most known for its treatment of substance abuse conditions.

Priory is expected to have around $865m in revenues and $196m of adjusted EBITDA for 2015.

People
Tom Riall is the CEO of Priory.

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• Topics
• Exits
• Healthcare
• UK / Ireland
• United Kingdom
• Trade sale
• Advent International