Private Equity Firms Trade Sterigenics

Buyout firm Silverfleet Capital is selling Sterigenics International to GTCR, a U.S. private-equity firm, for $675 million.

Sterigenics, based in Oak Brook, Ill., is the one of the world’s largest providers of outsourced sterilization services for medical equipment. The deal is expected to close by the second quarter. Healthcare merger deals have continued throughout the downturn, as companies consolidate to capture market share.

Silverfleet and PPM America Capital Partners, together with the management team of Sterigenics, acquired the company in 2004 for $311.5 million from Belgium’s Ion Beam Applications. Since then, the company has built two new facilities in Shanghai, China, a new facility in Wiesbaden, Germany, and expanded eight other facilities at a cost of more than $100 million.

Silverfleet Managing Partner Neil MacDougall, who is also a director at Sterigenics, said Sterigenics “has grown substantially during the six-year period that we have been investors.” MacDougall said this growth has come via investing in new service centers in China and Germany, as well as adding processing capacity to existing locations in the United States, France, Belgium and the United Kingdom.

Chicago-based GTCR is a 30-year-old firm that focuses on financial services and technology, healthcare, and information services and technology. It has invested more than $8 billion in more than 200 companies.