Bain, Hellman and Friedman sign deal to buy AthenHealth

People said a deal for nearby AthenaHealth could be completed in the coming days. The private-equity pair is poised to prevail at the Watertown, Mass., company’s auction, though there’s no guarantee they’ll secure a deal.

AthenHealth provides healthcare providers with cloud-based software that helps patients communicate with their doctors, streamline billing, and maintain patient records. The company is one of a handful of firms specializing in electronic health records and competes with larger players such as Cerner Corp. and the privately held Epic Systems Corp.

Demand for health care technology, already on the rise, has increased in the pandemic as more people meet their medical needs remotely.

Since 2019 the company has been owned by Veritas Capital and Evergreen Coast Capital, the private-equity arm of activist investor Elliott Management Corp. They agreed to take it private in 2018 in a deal worth about $5.5 billion after an acrimonious activist campaign led by Elliot. Which focused on Jonathan Bush, co-founder and former chief executive of AthenaHealth. Mr Bush stepped down as chairman and CEO in June 2018 after it emerged in divorce proceedings in 2006 that he had assaulted his then-wife. He has previously apologized, and at the time AthenHealth said that Mr Bush had “amended” with his ex-wife.

AthenaHealth’s current owners combined it with Virence Health Technologies, which was already owned by Veritas, and installed Virance CEO Bob Segert to lead the combined company.

Bloomberg reported in September that AthenaHealth’s private-equity owner was weighing a sale or public offering.

A deal for AthenaHealth will be the latest in a string of big purchases this year. Private-equity firms largely walked away from deals in the double-digit billions after the previous crop of large purchases struggled in the wake of the 2007-08 financial crisis. But deals like these are back, with firms operating in a valuable market needed to keep their record piles of unspent cash.

Based in Boston with offices around the world, Bain manages approximately $150 billion in assets in private equity credit, public equity, venture capital, and real estate.

With offices in San Francisco, New York and London, Hellman & Friedman has over $80 billion in assets under management and committed capital. The firm, which was founded in 1984, has a strategy to make large-scale investments in a limited number of growing companies in sectors including software and technology, financial services, healthcare, retail and consumer. It was part of the group that signed a $30 billion deal in June for medical supplies company Medline Industries Inc.

This story has been published without modification to the text from a wire agency feed