Nordic Capital becomes third buy-out firm to own Germany's GHD

[June 19, 2014]  FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Swedish private equity firm Nordic Capital agreed to buy GHD GesundHeits GmbH Deutschland from IK Investment Partners, becoming the third buy-out group to control the German healthcare-services provider.

IK said it and the buyer would not disclose financial terms. People familiar with the transaction told Reuters the price was about 500 million euros ($680 million).

IK said GHD, which had sales of 485 million euros last year, was Germany's largest provider of home care to patients with serious diseases.

In 2010, IK bought a controlling stake in GHD from Barclays Private Equity for 320 million euros and funded GHD's expansion into markets such as compounding chemotherapy drugs to meet individual cancer patients' needs.

The sources said that by selling its stake in GHD, IK had doubled the equity capital it had invested over close to four years, equal to an annual return of about 20 percent.

($1 = 0.7368 Euros)

(Reporting by Alexander Huebner; Writing by Ludwig Burger; Editing by Larry King)

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