Bain & Company's sixth Global Healthcare Private Equity and Corporate M&A Report finds a surge in public-to-private transactions as funds hunt for attractive assets.<br />
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Amid questions about the direction of the global economy, investors doubled down on healthcare as a safe haven in 2016, driving up both deal count and deal value. Yet, with so much interest in overall healthcare assets, they faced intense competition for deals. This heated struggle bid up valuations and forced healthcare investors to get creative. Many funds took advantage of a disparity between public and private valuations for some healthcare assets, which prompted a surge in public-to-private transactions. The flip side of this trend was a falloff in the number of IPOs amid a modest decline in overall exit activity. These are the findings from Bain & Company's sixth Global Healthcare Private Equity and Corporate M&A Report, released today.