Houlihan Lokey Advises Clayton, Dubilier & Rice

Houlihan Lokey is pleased to announce that private equity firm Clayton, Dubilier & Rice, LLC (CD&R), has completed its acquisition of Huntsworth PLC (LSE:HNT) for £575 million. The transaction closed on May 1, 2020.

CD&R has completed the acquisition of Huntsworth PLC, a leading provider of specialty services that helps pharmaceutical and biotech companies commercialize new therapies and support the life cycle of drug innovation. As of today, the transaction was valued at £575 million.

Huntsworth's broad range of value-added services includes medical affairs, market access, and marketing to a large and diverse portfolio of clients consisting primarily of pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies in the U.S. and Europe. Over the past 10 years, the business has transformed from a traditional communications agency to a diversified pharma commercialization services platform (approximately 85% of the operating profit of the group is from its Health division), offering end-to-end solutions to pharma and biotech customers.

CD&R believes that Huntsworth's underlying markets are attractive and underpinned by long-term, stable pharma-related trends, such as demographics, increasing outsourcing, growing new product launches, shift to more specialized drugs (where targeted, thoughtful engagement is key), and increasing complexity and emergence of new marketing channels.

The investment leverages CD&R's operating experience in healthcare, as well as specific expertise with similar channels and hybrid healthcare business models. CD&R will further integrate expertise in the industry with Liam FitzGerald, Operating Advisor to CD&R funds,¹ taking on the role of Chairman. Mr. FitzGerald is the former CEO of UDG Healthcare, the parent of Ashfield Healthcare, a similar platform to Huntsworth.

Huntsworth is an international healthcare and communications group. The group's principal area of focus is health, providing marketing and medical communications services to healthcare clients primarily of large and mid-size companies in the pharmaceutical and biotech space. It also has a smaller communications group that provides a wide range of communications and advisory services, including strategic communications, public affairs, investor relations, and consumer marketing. Huntsworth is headquartered in London and operates 46 offices around 20 countries with approximately 2,000 employees. 

CD&R is a private investment firm with a strategy predicated on building stronger, more profitable businesses. Since inception, CD&R has managed the investment of $30 billion in 90 businesses representing a broad range of industries with an aggregate transaction value of approximately $140 billion. The firm has offices in New York and London.

Houlihan Lokey served as financial advisor to CD&R and assisted the firm in the structuring, valuation, and negotiation of the transaction. This transaction highlights Houlihan Lokey's leading experience in the medical communications space and represents the firm's fourth transaction in this space in the past twelve months.

1. Liam FitzGerald is an Operating Advisor engaged by CD&R Fund X. Senior Advisors and Operating Advisors are not partners or employees of Clayton, Dubilier & Rice, LLC, or CD&R LLP.