Goldman Sachs Asset Management and Los Angeles County Employees Retirement Association have led a process to give GHO Capital Partners fresh capital and more time to manage a consultancy company it acquired in 2018.
London-headquartered healthcare specialist GHO closed a single-asset GP-led process involving Validant, a compliance and regulatory consultancy firm, according to six sources familiar with the matter. The deal is understood to have closed in April.
The process involved moving Validant into a continuation vehicle worth between $450 million and $500 million and which included follow-on capital, the sources said.
Portfolio Advisors was a lead syndicate member, according to two of the sources. CPP Investments also backed the process which Rede Partners advised on, according to the six sources.
Validant, based in San Francisco, provides global compliance and regulatory affairs consulting services to biotech, pharma and medtech companies, according to GHO’s website.
GHO acquired Validant using its 2015-vintage €660 million GHO Capital I fund. Validant management is a significant investor in the company and is a re-investor via this latest GP-led process, according to one of the sources.
The secondaries transaction is significant for at least two reasons: it is understood to be the second time that LACERA – which is an existing LP with GHO, having committed €100 million to its latest GHO Capital III fund, according to PEI data – has led a GP-led secondaries process. It is also the latest example of CPPIB being involved in single-asset deals – a market it did not invest in until late last year, as Secondaries Investor has reported.
This is the first time GHO has tapped the secondaries market to create a continuation vehicle, according to one of the sources.
There are some signs the single-asset market may be facing capacity restraints. Around two-thirds of buyer respondents to an April survey by adviser Cebile Capital are either capacity constrained or only want to add exposure to single-asset transactions opportunistically.
Separate spokespeople for Goldman, GHO, CPPIB, Portfolio Advisors and Rede declined to comment. Eric Rose, a spokesperson for LACERA, confirmed the US pension’s involvement in the process to Secondaries Investor.
– This report was updated to correct the vintage year of GHO Capital I to 2015.
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