Silverfleet Capital acquires stake in fertility clinic group CARE Fertility

Munich, London, Paris — Silver­fleet Capi­tal, a pan-Euro­­pean private equity firm, has acqui­red a majo­rity stake in CARE Ferti­lity Holdings Limi­ted (“CARE”). Head­quar­te­red in Notting­ham, England, the company is a leading opera­tor of ferti­lity clinics in the United King­dom. CARE’s above-average success rates are based on a strong scien­ti­fic and clini­cal approach. The parties have agreed not to disc­lose details of the transaction.

Foun­ded in 1997, the company opera­tes nine clinics and 13 offices in the United King­dom and Ireland. Since its incep­tion, CARE has helped launch the birth of more than 30,000 babies. The company’s success rate across all key metrics is among the highest in the UK. With exten­sive rese­arch and deve­lo­p­ment acti­vi­ties, CARE is an inno­va­tion driver in the indus­try. The company lever­a­ges data and clini­cal exper­tise to pioneer cutting-edge treat­ments and proce­du­res to market.

The invest­ment in CARE is based on Silverfleet’s exten­sive expe­ri­ence in health­care and its stra­tegy of inves­t­ing in high-growth markets — in this case, ferti­lity services — and helping compa­nies expand dome­sti­cally and inter­na­tio­nally. With the help of Silver­fleet, CARE will conti­nue its strong, diver­si­fied growth trajec­tory. This includes expan­ding the clinic network in the UK, deve­lo­ping new products and services to improve pati­ent success rates, and making further acqui­si­ti­ons to conso­li­date the highly frag­men­ted market in order to build an inter­na­tio­nal plat­form in the ferti­lity clinic sector.

The invest­ment in CARE is Silverfleet’s ninth over­all from the current fund and comple­ments a port­fo­lio that includes compa­nies in the UK, France, Scan­di­na­via and Germany.

Alfa Chan (photo), Part­ner at Silver­fleet and respon­si­ble for health­care invest­ments, says: “CARE is the clear market leader in a sector that shows high growth poten­tial as the demand for ferti­lity services conti­nues to increase. The CARE brand has a strong repu­ta­tion and treat­ment outco­mes are leading the market. We look forward to working closely with the manage­ment team and employees to further deve­lop the business.”

David Burford, CEO of CARE, adds, “Silver­fleet is the ideal part­ner to take our company to the next level of its growth. Silverfleet’s impres­sive track record of helping compa­nies execute their growth plans, as well as their exten­sive invest­ment expe­ri­ence in the health­care sector, will be very valuable. I’ve known the Silver­fleet team for a long time and look forward to imple­men­ting our plans together.”

The Silver­fleet team for this tran­sac­tion includes Alfa Chan, Sumit Dheir, Peter Kise­nyi and Domi­nic Mitchell, based in Silver­fleet Capital’s London office.

Consul­tant Silverfleet:
Lincoln (M&A), PwC (Finan­cial, Commer­cial & Tax), Ropes & Gray (Legal, Corpo­rate), Deloitte (Debt Advi­sory), WA Commu­ni­ca­ti­ons (Poli­ti­cal), Intui­tus (IT) and AJ Gallag­her (Insu­rance).
Apollo provi­ded the debt capi­tal.

About CARE Fertility
Foun­ded in 1997, CARE Ferti­lity is the leading ferti­lity service provi­der in the United King­dom, having successfully laun­ched the birth of more than 30,0000 babies since its incep­tion. CARE is an inter­na­tio­nally reco­gni­zed brand and is synony­mous with inno­va­tion with leading ferti­lity success rates driven by clini­cal excel­lence and conti­nuous improvement.

Today, CARE Ferti­lity opera­tes nine CARE clinics and 13 offices, provi­ding compre­hen­sive coverage in the United King­dom and Ireland.

About Silver­fleet Capital
Silver­fleet Capi­tal has been active as a private equity inves­tor in the Euro­pean mid-market for more than 30 years. The 30-strong invest­ment team works from Munich, London, Paris, Stock­holm and Amsterdam.

Eight invest­ments have alre­ady been made from the second inde­pen­dent fund closed in 2015 with a volume of 870 million euros: The Masai Clot­hing Company, a women’s fashion whole­sa­ler and retailer head­quar­te­red in Denmark; Coven­tya, a French deve­lo­per of specialty chemi­cals; Sigma Compon­ents, a UK-based manu­fac­tu­rer of precis­ion compon­ents for civil avia­tion; Life­time Trai­ning, a UK-based provi­der of trai­ning programs; Pumpen­fa­brik Wangen, a manu­fac­tu­rer of specialty pumps based in Germany; Riviera Travel, an opera­tor of escor­ted group tours and crui­ses based in the United King­dom; 7days, a German supplier of medi­cal work­wear; and Prefere Resins, a leading phen­o­lic and amino resin manu­fac­tu­rer in Europe.

Silver­fleet achie­ves value growth by inves­t­ing in compa­nies in its core sectors that bene­fit from speci­fic, long-term trends. Silver­fleet supports these compa­nies in their future growth stra­te­gies. As part of these stra­te­gies, invest­ments are made in orga­nic growth drivers, inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion, stra­te­gic acqui­si­ti­ons or opera­tio­nal impro­ve­ment proces­ses. Since 2004, Silver­fleet Capi­tal has inves­ted €1.9 billion in 28 companies.

Silver­fleet specia­li­zes in four indus­try focus areas:
Busi­ness and finan­cial services, health­care, manu­fac­tu­ring, and retail and consu­mer goods. Its exten­sive expe­ri­ence in the health­care sector is based on seve­ral successful previous invest­ments — inclu­ding Aesica (phar­maceu­ti­cal contract deve­lo­p­ment and manu­fac­tu­ring) and Steri­ge­nics (contract steri­liza­tion services), which gene­ra­ted returns of 3.3x and 3.6x, respectively.

Since 2004, the private equity inves­tor has inves­ted 33 percent of its assets in compa­nies head­quar­te­red in the DACH region, 31 percent in the U.K. and Ireland, 19 percent in Scan­di­na­via and 17 percent mainly in France and the Bene­lux count­ries (includes an invest­ment head­quar­te­red in the U.S. and sourcing in Belgium).