Susan Newell
Jun 15, 2022
Growing interest from investors is contributing to increased merger and acquisition activity in Canada’s health care market, generally thought of as the domain of government-provided universal insurance. But from veterinary services and dentistry to emerging areas like virtual care, much of the country’s health sector is ripe with opportunity for acquisition and consolidation by private equity and other investors.
“The fundamental thing people should be thinking is that a significant amount of our health care system is not part of government-insured services,” says Susan Newell, a corporate commercial partner in Osler’s Health Industry and Cannabis practice groups.
“A large number of health services are paid for privately and are outside of the publicly funded insured service regime. And there are some great opportunities for M&A.”
Though Canada’s regulatory environment poses certain challenges to M&A and rollups in the health sphere, such as the requirement in Ontario that a dentist needs to own the practice, Susan says challenges like this can be overcome.
“In the dental world, what we’re seeing is the development of dental service organizations that provide a turnkey solution for dentists to operate within, and the dentists would have ownership of the professional practice with the professional goodwill.”
Susan expects to see M&A activity continue as investors look to introduce new operational efficiencies in the space, at a time when the health care system is straining under the weight of an aging population, higher costs and other factors.
You can read the full article, “Roll up in health care sector grows as private equity, strategic players see opportunity,” at Lexpert’s website.