Sylvan buys Singapore orthopaedics business

Sylvan purchased Artemis, a musculoskeletal care provider, in February along with three other healthcare companies. These four acquisitions, worth a combined USD 140.5m, were the firm’s first investments.

Part of that initial commitment is being used to finance Artemis’ SOS acquisition. The transaction entails a combination of primary and secondary shares, as well as rollover equity from SOS doctors, who will continue to hold a significant minority stake.

Founded in 1995, SOS operates across orthopaedics, sports medicine, and neurosurgery. Patients are both local and international, with ailments ranging from sports injuries, spine and neurosurgical problems, and musculoskeletal tumours, to orthopaedic trauma and arthritis.

The staff includes eight orthopaedic surgeons, one neurosurgeon, and one sports medicine physician. By working together closely, they are said to be able to provide more holistic care. They operate out of four clinics in four multidisciplinary hospitals, including the large Mount Elizabeth and Gleneagles hospitals.

Sylvan was set up by Hyundai scion Kyungsun Chung in 2019 alongside Scott Jeun, a former Columbia University classmate, with a view to making profitable impact investments, primarily buyouts. Its early activity has all been in the healthcare space; the idea is to create a vertical platform that integrates various service operators.

“People tend to build healthcare platforms on a horizontal basis to scale, which is less distinctive,” Gerald Leong, a managing partner at Sylvan, told AVCJ in March. Leong joined the firm in 2020 as a leveraged buyout specialist and helped launch its debut fund, which is targeting USD 400m.

The initial portfolio also includes Juniper Biologics, which focuses on cancer, rare diseases and gene therapy; Juniper Therapeutics, a gene therapy provider targeting knee pain and osteoarthritis; and DX Imaging, a radiology and imaging services company. DX appears set to be part of the services platform, while the Juniper businesses will be part of a separate biotech platform.

The plan for SOS is to speed up its growth by adding new service offerings, expanding into new locations, and hiring professionals across all relevant sub-specialities. All 10 of the company’s existing doctors will remain as shareholders in the enlarged company.

“Ensuring healthy lives and promoting wellbeing for all ages is an important sustainable development goal for every country. We see rising demand for quality and accessible healthcare in Asia for the coming years on the back of steady economic growth and demographic changes,” Jeun said in a statement.

“Sylvan will continue to be on the lookout for investment opportunities that will also deliver a positive impact to the broader society we live in.”

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• Topics
• Southeast Asia
• Healthcare
• Buyouts
• Singapore
• Impact investment