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Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
A Look at Mid-Year Healthcare Transactions and Talent Strategy with Holly Buckley of McGuireWoods LLP 7-22-25
00:05:21
In this episode, Holly Buckley, Chair of Healthcare at McGuireWoods, shares insights on deal activity across the healthcare market, including rising interest in home-based care, behavioral health, and digital health.
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Transcript12 lines
- [00:00]
A
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Business and the Becker Private Equity Podcast. We're thrilled today to be joined by Holly Buckley. Holly chairs the healthcare department at McGuire woods and works at the intersection. She's a master and a leader at the intersection of private equity and healthcare. We're going to talk to her today about the healthcare market, the private equity deal market, as well as where she's most focused for the rest of this year. Holly, can you take a moment and introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about the McGuire woods and McGuire woods healthcare department.
- [00:32]
B
Thank you, Scott, and thank you for having me. So I chair the healthcare department at McGuire woods on a national basis. We are one of the oldest healthcare departments in the country. We have about 50 attorneys doing nothing but healthcare. And we really live at the intersection of healthcare providers, healthcare investors, healthcare lenders, and we have a growing expertise in FDA and life sciences. And we are very focused right now on an active second half of the year. Things feel like they're really picking up and excited for the discussion.
- [01:08]
A
Thank you. And talk to us a little bit about the deal activity. The deal market, the big deal market has been rocked and rolling. The mid sized deal market's been a little bit slower. What are you seeing there and what changes are you seeing afoot?
- [01:21]
B
Yeah, so I think just in the last months we've seen just a really big uptick in deal volume on kind of not the mega deals, on just the standard lower market and middle market deals. We're seeing, I'd say even an uptick on PPM deals which had been pretty sluggish the first half of the year. We're seeing really good interest and volume around specialties that bring healthcare into the home. So home health, hospice infusion and other solutions that reduce the cost of health care. We're also continuing to see really good volume on digital health and kind of healthcare support solutions. We should be consistent throughout the year, but seeing good deal volume there as well.
- [02:14]
A
Thank you. And what are you saying? Is it the buyers of practices in the PPM area or the the high tech or digital area? Where are you seeing the most activity and are the buyers private equity sponsored platforms? Are there any strategics at all? Are the insurance companies or the health systems active at all in the practice acquisition market or is that all but dried up?
- [02:39]
B
I don't think. I think on the strategic side we are seeing activity obviously like Cardinal is a great example. They have been active this year with the GIA acquisition and then that's continued to be acquisitive and Then there's other payer backed platforms that are continuing to have good strong activity. So we're definitely seeing strategic activity as well. But we're, I think in my mind we, we think of them when it comes to the big mega deals, the big, the big exit deals. But in terms of the rollup activity, I think we're seeing them present as well. But we're seeing a lot more on the private equity side.
- [03:19]
A
Got it. And for a period of time it seemed like people had really softened, slowed on bolt on acquisitions, just high interest rates and particularly in lower margin areas. What are you seeing? There are people starting to get active with bolt on and add on acquisitions again?
- [03:35]
B
Yeah, they are. I mean I just think that there's so much pent up demand and dry powder that I, I think that we're seeing the deal activity loosen in the sense that it's, it's kind of getting moving again and it's certainly not as rapid as it was and there's more discipline around it. But we are starting to see in the kind of the back half of the year more Lois come in and more folks looking to transact and plan on closing things before the end of the year.
- [04:09]
A
Thank you. And talk about where you're most focused and excited for this back half of the year.
- [04:16]
B
Where I am focused is I would say deals, as I mentioned earlier, bringing kind of healthcare into the home. I've got a lot of them on my plate as well as some behavioral health deals. I expect them to pretty much fill my plate between now and the end of the year. And then outside of actual legal work, I would say we're very focused on continuing to recruit really high quality attorneys who are a great cultural fit with us. And so my, I'm kind of reorienting my attention to the focus back on lateral recruiting after a brief hiatus as we were working on integrating some new hires earlier this year.
- [04:56]
A
It's fantastic and it's always exciting to see the growth in the hiring and the recruiting and the building. Just a fantastic job again. We're so thrilled today of Holly Buckley with us, brilliant leader, partner at Maguire Woods. Thank you for joining us in the Becker Business podcast and the Becker Private Equity podcast. Thank you very, very much.
- [05:16]
B
Thank you.