Cressey & Co talking about new fund of up to $500 mln

The new fund will most likely carry the name Cressey & Co Fund V as a follow-up to Cressey  & Co Fund IV, its first fund as a spinoff from the former Thoma Cressey Bravo. Cressey & Co plans to keep the size of Fund V in line with Fund IV.

Among its deals, Cressey & Co sold an 85 percent stake in Homecare Homebase LLC, a Dallas-based provider of software-as-a-service solutions for the homecare and hospice market, to Hearst Corp for an undisclosed sum. The deal was announced in December. The firm paid an undisclosed sum to buy Unitek Information Systems in a deal announced last June. Also last year, Cressey & Co platform U.S. Renal Care closed an add-on deal for Ambulatory Services of America Inc, for an undisclosed sum.

Currrent portfolio firms in Fund IV include Gulf Coast Dermatology, InnerChange and Strategic Healthcare Programs LLC, according to the firm’s website.

Cressey & Co principals were responsible for listed investments in prior funds including: Spine Wave Inc, Jazz Pharmaceuticals and Encompass Home Health Inc, according to its website. Prior funds include Thoma Cressey Fund VI, Thoma Cressey Fund VII and Thoma Cressey Bravo Fund VIII.

Bryan Cressey, one of firm’s six partners and its namesake, began his career with First Chicago Equity Group. He co-founded Thoma Cressey Bravo in 1998 and Cressey & Co in 2008. Cressey did not return a phone call from Buyouts.

Another TCB spinoff, Thoma Bravo, just closed its latest fund with about $3.7 billion in commitments. Another firm with some common roots with TCB is Chicago-based GTCR.  Bruce Rauner, a co-founder of GTCR, is now the Republican nominee for governor of Illinois.

Other partners at Cressey & Co include Ralph Davis, Peter Ehrich and Bill Frist, a Tennessee Republican who served as Senate majority leader. (His father, Thomas, founded HCA, which was taken private in 2006 by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co and Bain Capital.) In 2012, Cressey & Co promoted Merrick Axel and David Schuppan to partner.

The firm split from Thoma Cressey Bravo in 2008, partly to allow Cressey & Co to focus exclusively on healthcare services companies. The firm also opened up an office in Nashville the same year. In its last fund, Cressey & Co took two years in the fundraising market to reach $300 million in commitments for Fund IV by 2010. The fund ultimately raised about $400 million by 2011.

Among its LPs, the State Board of Administration of Florida committed $50 million to Cressey & Co Fund IV in 2008.

The Blackstone Group’s Park Hill Group served as a placement agent for Cressey & Co Fund IV, along with Shannon Advisors LLC, according to a Form D filing.