That’s likely to make Novotech more valuable for TPG Capital and its minority investors, which include Singapore’s GIC, America’s Kaiser Foundation Hospitals and Sequoia Capital China. The group secured about a $US3 billion ($4.17 billion) valuation in January, as part of a debt and equity raising, and lined up for a potential listing in Hong Kong late last year.
Novotech CEO John Moller and chief financial officer Rob Speedie (a former TPG dealmaker in Australia) are understood to be heavily involved in the transaction. TPG Capital co-managing partner for Asia Joel Thickins, a Melbourne-based dealmaker, has called the shots at Novotech since his firm’s investment in 2017 and is one of four TPG operatives on its board.
TPG Capital’s big move was to merge the Australian-founded Novotech with Shanghai-based PPC Group – another one of its portfolio companies – in 2020.
The combined group, dubbed Novotech Health Holdings, was pitched as the largest biotech specialist CRO that could deliver full clinical trial services, from first-in-human to phase IV clinical studies, in Asia. It also has an on-the-ground presence in San Francisco and Boston, in the United States, and bought South Carolina-based NCGS in May to beef up its US business.
KPMG and EY are understood to be advising on the EastHORN deal.
