Pritzker Private Capital works to push growth in healthcare

Why this is important: Pritzker Private Capital has more in the works in the healthcare space.

Michael Dal Bello, a Pritzker Private Capital investment partner focused on healthcare, sees further growth for portfolio company PathGroup, which in May acquired Dallas-based Pathologists Bio-Medical Laboratories.

“We’ve got a couple new things that we’re working on as we speak,” Dal Bello told Buyouts. “As long as it’s a good cultural fit and we’re all aligned, we would like to continue to support PathGroup’s growth.”

Pritzker recapitalized Brentwood, Tennessee-based PathGroup, founded in 1965, in 2016 alongside co-investors and the company’s management team. Ben Davis is PathGroup’s president and chief executive.

PBM is “a like-minded group, physician-led, with a very strong market presence in Texas and a great reputation for quality,” he said. “PathGroup folks have known key individuals at PBM for quite a long time, before we at Pritzker were even involved with the company. So this is a conversation that’s evolved in the long term.”

Even though PBM gives PathGroup a larger geographic footprint, Dal Bello said, finding the right people to work with took precedence.

“There are a lot of geographies we could expand into that would be attractive and strategic, but … it’s very important that we have a good fit with folks. … That’s frankly number one,” he said.

Pritzker Private Capital is part of Pritzker Group, a family office run by Tony Pritzker of Chicago’s Pritzker family, which made its name as owners of the Hyatt hotel chain.

Pritzker Group was founded in 1996 and includes separate venture capital and asset management teams.

Pritzker Private Capital acquires and operates middle-market companies based in North America, the website says.

Dal Bello described Pritzker to Buyouts as “builders of business” as opposed to “financial engineers.”

“We’re looking for situations where, whether it’s a management team, or it’s a family, or it’s a founder, it’s someone who cares about growing the business together with us,” he said. “We’re not trying to fit their company into our mousetrap. We’re trying to have our approach maximize the full potential of the business.”

In general, Pritzker Private Capital is not in a hurry. Dal Bello stressed the firm is willing to hold onto a business as long as necessary, often beyond the three-to-five year hold in traditional PE. “We have no time constraints,” he told Buyouts. “We don’t really think about it in that way.”

Dal Bello split Pritzker’s overall investment strategy into three categories: manufacturing, healthcare and services. The amount of capital deployed in each sector depends.

“We don’t start each year saying we have to put x dollars or x percent in x,y,z sectors — we’re all about looking for the best opportunities that fit with our strategy,” Dal Bello said.