PE Firm Havencrest Forms Home Care Platform ‘Avid Health at Home,’ Plans To Rapidly Expand

In connection with its acquisition of For Papa’s Sake Home Care (FPS), Havencrest Capital Management has formed its own home care platform.

The new company will be dubbed “Avid Health at Home,” and Havencrest Operating Partner Jen Lentz will be the CEO.

“We are very excited about the creation of Avid as well as our partnership with FPS,” Christopher W. Kersey, founding managing partner of Havencrest, said in a statement. “With Jen’s leadership and her successful operating track record in the post-acute care marketspace, our investment in FPS represents a strategic entry point into home care and will allow Avid to establish market leadership and expand access to quality care for patients across the Chicago market.”

Based in Dallas, Havencrest is a health care-focused private equity fund with about $600 million of assets under management. The company’s strategic approach is to partner with founder-owned health care companies with EBITDA between $3 million and $15 million.

For Papa’s Sake Home Care fits the bill. Founded in 2011, the company provides home care services to the broader Chicagoland area.

“At Avid, our goal is to establish a platform that provides quality person-to-person care that leverages industry best practices as well as innovative technology,” Lentz said in a statement. “Havencrest is the catalyst to achieve that goal through our shared vision of expanding the critical role that home care plays in the larger health care delivery system.”

The plan is to begin expanding immediately. Avid is “actively exploring new acquisition opportunities” across the Midwest, Mid-Atlantic and Mountain West geographies.

Ultimately, Avid hopes to be a successful home care platform, but also a disrupter.

“We believe there is significant opportunity to innovate in home care through a focus on technology, training and quality measures,” Jett Aubrey, principal of Havencrest, said in a statement. “Home care is increasingly demanding a bigger seat at the post-acute table, and we believe that Avid is positioned to be that provider of choice for patients, providers and payers.”

Private equity involvement in home-based care has slowed of late due to macro economic factors.

But the platform formula – where PE firms hand the keys to an in-house leader – is an emerging trend.

Waud Capital recently put $100 million behind two home-based care veterans to build a home-based care company, for instance. 

“Models like that, which are going to allow firms to take advantage of a little bit better pricing on smaller agencies, while still putting capital to work without having to do big platform deals – we’re going to see a lot of that,” Rebecca Springer, senior health care analyst at Pitchbook, told HHCN in February.