Private Equity Investors Flock to Resilient Healthcare Industry

Healthcare private equity had another banner year in 2019, outperforming the broader PE market, with 313 deals totaling $78.9 billion in disclosed value. Several factors account for healthcare’s durable investment performance: notably, strong underlying demand for healthcare, derived from an aging global population; growing incidents of and treatments for chronic diseases; and rising incomes in emerging markets. More PE funds are investing in healthcare, and a greater number of individual funds are trying to allocate more of their capital toward healthcare. Given how the industry’s performance held up during the past recession, investors view healthcare as resilient at any stage of an economic cycle and thus an increasingly attractive home for their capital.

Nirad Jain and Kara Murphy colead Bain & Company’s Healthcare Private Equity practice.