OMERS Private Equity director Lindsay Rutledge leaves for Properly

Rutledge’s departure is the second this year from OMERS Private Equity's operations and strategy group. Makram Atiyah left in April, Buyouts reported.

Lindsay Rutledge, a director of OMERS Private Equity, departed the firm this month, sources told Buyouts.

Rutledge left to join Properly, a tech-enabled home-buying-and-selling services provider, sources said.

Properly is backed by Japanese staffing giant Recruit Holdings, Prudence Holdings, FJ Labs and other investors. Rutledge took on the role of vice president, strategy, according to her LinkedIn profile.

Ontario Municipal Employees’ Retirement System, which holds assets of C$105 billion ($87 billion), declined to comment.

Rutledge was a director in OMERS Private Equity’s operations and strategy group. Based in Toronto, she worked with North American investment and management teams to assess new deals, as well as to define and execute value-creation priorities.

Rutledge’s exit brings the number of senior staff in the operations and strategy group to four. Earlier in 2021, London-based director Makram Atiyah also left the group, Buyouts reported. Other recent departures include Tim Patterson, an 11-year OMERS veteran and ex-head of the healthcare team.

Prior to joining OMERS in 2018, Rutledge was for more than two years a senior executive with Bench, a bookkeeping services provider to small businesses. Before, she worked for nearly a decade as a management consultant at Bain & Company.

It is possible that OMERS Private Equity will soon be replacing senior personnel – and maybe even adding to its bench – due to a recent uptick in dealmaking. Perhaps in expectation of post-pandemic opportunities, the firm has since January closed three new investments.

OMERS in May said it would acquire a 25 percent stake in International Schools Partnership, a UK operator of K-12 schools, from Partners Group. In the same month, it announced an agreement to buy Gastro Health, a US gastroenterology physician practice manager, from Audax Private Equity.

The Gastro Health deal, which concludes a sales process that kicked off earlier this year, values the company at about $950 million, PE Hub reported.

OMERS’ third investment was the acquisition of TurnPoint Services, a US electrical, HVAC and plumbing services provider, from Trivest Partners. The deal closed in January.

OMERS Private Equity is led by Michael Graham, who last year replaced Mark Redman. Its direct strategy focuses on control investing of $300 million to $1 billion in North American and European companies in business services, healthcare, industrials and software sectors.