Press Ganey acquisition completed

NEW YORK: EQT on Friday closed its acquisition of Press Ganey Holdings Inc, a provider of patient satisfaction surveys, giving the Swedish buyout firm its first foothold in the U.S. healthcare market, the company said.

The acquisition, which values Press Ganey at around $2.35 billion, gives EQT a platform in the healthcare technology space at a time when hospitals, governments and insurers are increasingly relying on data and analytics to improve the quality of care.

Press Ganey conducts patient satisfaction surveys that are relied on by government healthcare payers to help determine reimbursements for hospitals.

It provides data to the U.S. government's Medicare program, which in recent years has increasingly used performance data to determine reimbursement rates.

Analysts and investors expect data providers like Press Ganey to continue to benefit as private insurers also ramp up their use of performance measurements.

South Bend, Indiana-based Press Ganey was founded in 1985 and went public in May 2015. At the time of its sale to EQT, its previous private equity owner, Vestar Capital, still held a nearly 60 percent stake.

Based in Stockholm, EQT was founded in 1994 in connection with the Wallenberg family, a Swedish business family that owns stakes in about half the country's publicly traded companies by market capitalization.

EQT focuses heavily on operations, putting industry practitioners on the boards of its portfolio companies, many of which work in other companies partly owned by the Wallenbergs.

"EQT will leverage its deep platform and global capabilities to provide valuable resources in support of Press Ganey’s continued growth,” said Eric Liu, a partner at EQT.