Ventures and Private Equity team up to build a leader in healthcare payments
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STATUS
Active
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Year
2019
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LOCATION
Bedminster, New Jersey
KEY TRANSACTION DETAILS
- 2019 Investment (Bain Capital Private Equity and Bain Capital Ventures)
BUSINESS OVERVIEW
Integrated technology to streamline every payment and improve provider relationships
700
Payers
Millions
of healthcare providers and customers
THE BAIN CAPITAL ADVANTAGE AT WORK
In 2019, healthcare payments company Zelis was scaling rapidly. It was ready to take a transformative next step: a merger with RedCard Systems that would create the healthcare industry’s first next-generation, vertically-integrated payment technology leader.
To navigate the complex merger, Zelis knew it would need a partner with the financial wherewithal required to fund a multi-billion dollar transaction, the value-added portfolio capabilities required to support transformative M&A integration and the HCIT payments expertise required to drive the next chapter of innovation for the company. Zelis chose Bain Capital because these are our strengths.
With a long track record in healthcare, technology and payments, Bain Capital Private Equity and Bain Capital Ventures were able to develop a differentiated view of Zelis’s advantages in diligence with more conviction and speed than other potential acquirers. Bain Capital rapidly delivered a high-certainty proposal to catalyze the combination of Zelis and RedCard, along with a credible and comprehensive plan to help the combined company as a long-term, value-added partner.
The business has scaled rapidly – executing on its growth ambitions in a large, quickly penetrating end market, innovating new products and developing a best-in-class payments platform for payers, providers and members. Today, the business serves more than 700 payers, including the top 5 national health plans, BCBS insurers, regional health plans, TPAs and self-insured employers, and millions of healthcare providers and consumers. Zelis sits at the center of the HCIT digital payments and information highway.
Through the journey, Bain Capital has tapped several key executives in its network to play key roles transforming Zelis – including Amanda Eisel (CEO) and Brian Gladden (CFO) – two former leaders in the Bain Capital Portfolio Group. The new CEO, Amanda Eisel, had significant experience with Bain Capital’s technology and healthcare investments. She transitioned seamlessly from Bain Capital to the CEO role at Zelis, en route to delivering Zelis’s best bookings and growth year in its history.
Bain Capital’s deep talent network, M&A capabilities, and HCIT sector experience were key ingredients to making the Zelis-RedCard merger a transformational M&A triumph and positioning the company to make a lasting impact in the healthcare payments space.
In 2019, there were still over $450 billion of healthcare spend that was going through paper checks in our system. That is a perfect example of the waste that exists. And so what Bain Capital saw when they made this investment was the leading company that was addressing that, using technology to sit at the center of those payments and make them electronic. It’s the next frontier of what really needs to be solved in healthcare. And then Bain Capital also pushes us to ask, what’s this going to look like in 10 years, 20 years? And how do we start to build to that now? We are working to continually create the next horizon of growth.
