Private equity firm Hutton Collins has bought a significant minority stake in a company that provides complex home healthcare services.

Private equity firm Hutton Collins has bought a significant minority stake in a company that provides complex home healthcare services.

Healthcare at Home, which serves some 40,000 patients each year, was sold by Apax Partners for an undisclosed sum.

The company’s management, executive chairman Charles Walsh and chief executive Mike Gordon, have also released some of their equity but remain majority shareholders.

“Our aim is to shape the future of healthcare,” Walsh said. “Healthcare at Home has achieved a lot in a short time. With our new partner, Hutton Collins, we can go on to build a truly great British company.”

Hutton Collins’ Graham Hutton added that the firm is excited to be entering into partnership with Walsh and Gordon. “Healthcare at Home has a clear vision to improve the quality of life for thousands of patients across the UK and Hutton Collins looks forward to supporting the company through its next stage of growth.”

Hutton Collins’ investment was supported by £175 million of debt underwritten jointly by Nomura International and Landsbanki. Nomura also acted as the bookrunner.

Apax’s senior managing partner, Adrian Beecroft, said: “When Apax first invested in Healthcare at Home 12 years ago the company had four employees. Today it has over 600 and provides a service of enormous value to its users.

“This is a prime example of private equity taking a long-term approach, helping a talented management team to create hundreds of jobs, and providing a terrific return for the pensioners whose money it invests,” he added.

Hutton Collins was advised by Investec, Eversheds, KPMG LLP and Candesic. Investec’s role involved advising on all aspects of the acquisition process, which included the terms of the debt agreements.

The firm’s team was led by director Richard Jones, who was supported by specialists from its healthcare analyst team. Seb Jantet handled the healthcare services part of the deal while Ibraheem Mahmood advised on the pharmaceutical market and drug pipeline. The firm’s team also included director Nick Soper, who handled the debt issues.

“Uniquely for us this was a deal that covered both the healthcare services and pharmaceutical markets which played to our strengths as we were able to involve our highly rated analysts from an early stage,” Jones said.

“In summary this was a deal that really did allow us to provide a fully integrated approach to benefit our client and reflected the strength of our sector-focused strategy,” he added.

Apax appointed L.E.K. Consulting to conduct a commercial vendor due diligence review, which was led by Jonathan Sparey and Adrian Gibb, partners in the firm’s European healthcare practice.

L.E.K. undertook a detailed analysis of target patient groups, trends in treatment pathways and drug usage, and assessed the likely market impact of new drugs in development.

Gibb said the firm was approached to work on the deal due to its specialist healthcare experience. “In order to reveal the dynamics of this successful company we felt that it was important to build a bottom-up validation of the market, an approach that the management fully supported.

“Healthcare at Home has prospered by developing the market in which it operates, one that is closely aligned with government policy on care in the community and patient choice,” he added. “Strong growth has been a feature of this business for the past few years and it looks set to continue.”

Founded in 1992 by Charles Walsh, Healthcare at Home provides treatment to patients in the comfort of their own homes. Its services include prescription management, dispensing and home delivery of complex drug therapies to patients with long term, chronic conditions.

Healthcare at Home has more than 600 employees and is based in Burton-upon-Trent, Staffordshire.