MBK buys Japan aged care business
MBK Partners has acquired Unimat Retirement Community (URC), a Japan-based company that primarily provides in-home and residential nursing care services.
The size of the deal was not disclosed, but Reuters reported that MBK paid more than USD 300m. URC traded on JASDAQ until June 2021 when it was delisted following a successful tender offer by Unimat Life, an insurance affiliate. Its market capitalisation at the time was approximately JPY 12bn (USD 93.6m). Revenue in the year prior to the delisting was around JPY 58.6bn.
The company was founded in 1975 as a clinical testing business and entered nursing care in the 1990s, establishing a home care helper station and then day care facilities. It became part of Unimat Holding, which has interests ranging from real estate and hospitality to health and beauty, in 2008. The JASDAQ listing followed in 2010 and residential retirement homes were introduced in 2013.
URC now claims to operate 366 locations nationwide, offering day and short-stay services, home visits and in-home care, and residential services. While this remains the core business, the company has also expanded into food delivery, fitness centre management, recruitment and consulting, and technology-enabled business services intended to improve the efficiency of nursing care.
The plan is to integrate URC with Tsukui Holdings Corporation, which MBK acquired through a tender offer in 2021 at a valuation of JPY66.9 billion, and create a market leader. Tsukui operates nursing homes and assisted living facilities and offers home visit services, but its biggest area is day care. At the time of acquisition, it had 700 directly managed facilities, most offering day services.
Recognising Japan’s intensifying demographic challenges – an ageing population will lead to more demand for services, while a shrinking working-age population means there will be fewer people to provide them – Tsukui pursued a similar kind of diversification to URC. It added recruitment, education and training, and IT services capabilities.
Other private equity activity in the aged care space includes Bain Capital’s 2020 acquisition of Nichii Gakkan, which provides support services for hospitals and clinics as well as in-home and residential aged care services. Polaris Capital Group entered the space two years later with the purchase of care home operator Social Inclu.
Both GPs have also completed deals in the pharmacy and outsourced hospital services segment, buying Kirindo Holdings and Sogo Medical Holdings, respectively. Japan’s ageing population is a consistent theme, whether it means addressing the rising demand for aged care services or increasing pressure on general healthcare services.
MBK is currently deploying its fifth flagship North Asia buyout fund, which closed on USD 6.5bn in May 2020.
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