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Senior OMERS Private Equity exec Jon McCarthy departs

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OMERS PE, private equity, pension fund, Jon McCarthy, Canada
Photo of Jon McCarthy courtesy OMERS PE.
  • 12-year veteran leaves OMERS PE for new opportunities
  • Joined as associate; left as managing director
  • Focus was North American market

Jon McCarthy, a 12-year veteran of OMERS Private Equity, left the firm at the beginning of May, a person with knowledge of the matter told Buyouts.

McCarthy, a member of OPE’s Toronto team, joined in 2007 as an associate and went on to become one of the group’s 12 managing directors. He left to pursue new career opportunities, the nature of which is unclear, the source said.

McCarthy’s focus was the North American market. He was responsible for originating, executing and managing several platform investments, including Caliber Collision Centers, a Lewisville, Texas, auto-collision-repair business.

OPE acquired Caliber in 2013 from ONCAP, at which time McCarthy became a director. In February, OPE sold its majority stake to Hellman & Friedman, which merged Caliber with Abra Auto Body Repair of America.

OPE and Leonard Green & Partners are minority investors in the merged company.

McCarthy was especially active in healthcare investments, a longtime area of OPE specialization.

He was a director of CBI Health, a Toronto provider of rehabilitation and home health services, bought in 2011 from Clearspring Capital Partners, and Forefront Dermatology, a Manitowoc, Wisconsin, network of dermatology practices, bought in 2016 from Varsity Healthcare Partners.

McCarthy also played a lead role in the 2011 purchase of Accelerated Rehabilitation Centers, a Chicago provider of outpatient rehabilitation services, from Gryphon Investors. OPE sold the business in 2014 to Harvest Partners-backed Athletico Physical Therapy, reportedly for $450 million.

Before OPE, McCarthy worked in sell-side equity research, covering the U.S. healthcare sector.

OPE is an affiliate of C$97 billion ($73 billion) Canadian pension fund OMERS. A pioneer of in-house direct investing by a major institution, the firm earlier this year unveiled a new growth-equity platform, OMERS Growth Equity.

OPE is led by Mark Redman, an OMERS executive vice president and global head of PE. He joined in 2009 from 3i Group.

OMERS PE investing in 2018

OMERS, which invests on behalf of Ontario municipal employees, committed C$10 billion to private investments last year.

Much of this activity was accounted for by OPE and OMERS Ventures, the combined investments of which totaled C$19 billion at the end of December, compared with C$14.4 billion a year earlier.

The overall portfolio earned a net return of 13.5 percent in 2018, up from 11.1 percent in 2017.