← Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Becker Private Equity & Business Podcast
Smarter Healthcare Deals and Building Strong Businesses with Holly Buckley of McGuireWoods LLP 7-15-26
00:12:01
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- [00:01]
A
When you're a maintenance engineer in a beverage manufacturing plant, you keep production lines moving and quality on track because there's no room for slowdowns. With Grainger's vast selection of high quality motors, sensors, belts and hard to find parts, you can get what you need fast and all in one place. So nothing gets in the way of getting the job done. Call 1-800-GRAINGER clickgrainger.com or just stop by Granger for the ones who get it done.
- [00:30]
B
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Business and the Becker Private Equity Podcast. Thrilled today to be joined by Holly Buckley. Holly's a remarkable superstar of a leader. We're going to talk to her about health care, about private equity and where she's most focused. Also her advice for founders and CEOs. Holly, take a moment and introduce yourself and tell us sort of today, this month, what are you most focused on? Where is your biggest focus? You lead the department, the healthcare department. McGuire woods, one of the largest healthcare departments in the country, work at the intersection of healthcare and private equity. If you want to boil down to one or two things, what are you the most focused on currently?
- [01:13]
C
Well, Scott, first of all, thank you for having me on the podcast. It is great to be chatting with you as always. I think I have a few different folks I think with respect to clients and deals and we'll talk about this more during our discussion. But I think one of the things that I'm really focused on beyond just getting deals done is how to get deals done in a way that sets them up for long term success. And so I think a lot of this is kind of building the investment thesis and the, the, the roadmap for success in the kind of the pre deal and the, the early stages of the deal in terms of how do we make this a durable business, how do we make sure alignment is right as between the owners and the producers of the business? So I think that's kind of what I'm most focused on from a client perspective. I think outside of that, from a department perspective, really just focused on both ensuring the current group is doing great and is developing and working well and also on growth and figuring out how we need to be built for the next five years.
- [02:29]
B
Thank you. And when you look at clients and transactions and aligning deals and alignment taking place, where do you see things go right? When a client is doing an acquisition, a bolt on maybe a large investment platform, where do you think go right? Because they've aligned well and they're really clear about what they're trying to do. And how damaging is it when they haven't had that core of alignment?
- [02:57]
C
Yeah, I think for alignment, I think it's both making sure that the incentives are appropriate and make sense both on a kind of immediately post deal perspective for kind of the hold period as well as for the subsequent transaction and then ongoing beyond that. And so making sure that the investor isn't stepping into an investment where you know, they just, they're paying a purchase price and getting, getting a platform. But the incentives that were in place historically may not be good for any of those subsequent phases either during the initial hold period or the subsequent transaction or kind of post that. And so looking at the alignment model historically, making sure that the expectations of the sellers are going to be met in the transaction to the extent that they're going to be continuing with the business. But I see the most successful businesses being ones that have really good clarity in terms of how that's going to look in the future. And if there's something not right about the structure kind of pre deal for any of those subsequent phases, fixing that immediately kind of at the time of the deal versus saying look, we're going to need to fix that down the road. Getting it fixed up front is optimal because that's when you have the most leverage and the ability to actually do that and then start your investment kind of on the right foot. I think where things go wrong is where people either don't identify an issue with alignment at the time of the deal or they identify it, but they kick the can down the road and then they have to fix it at a point in time where you're kind of relying on people's agreement and cooperation when those things are going to come with some pain because then you're really making the problem your own and, and you're going to have to feel the pain of that transition.
- [04:58]
B
Thank you. And I could not agree with you more if people don't deal with the potential challenges up front, particularly the big ones, the small ones. I'm a big fan of often letting go, but the important ones, really focusing on really making sure you understand where you're going and not waiting till later. I'm a huge fan of that. Talk for a second about the health care private equity deal market right now and give us a sense of the temperature there and what you're seeing in terms of the deal market.
- [05:25]
C
Yeah, I mean it's, it feels busy. Like there's a fair amount going on and there's a fair amount going on both in terms of Bigger deals and smaller deals. And we're seeing some anticipated exits kind of come to market now. I would say though, overall the market has become much more disciplined. And this kind of goes to kind of what we've been talking about in terms of alignment, but also in terms of whether or not to even do a deal where capital was less expensive. It was, there was this kind of a real rush on deals that maybe in a more challenging climate wouldn't have got done. And so now investors, you know, they really want to get deals done. They've got a lot of dry powder, but they're much more selective. And we're seeing committees kind of say no on deals, even if they've spent a bit of time working on it and looking at it, because they're not necessarily confident in their ability to drive acceptable or strong return on that asset. And so I think a lot of the work's being done ahead of time now. And they're looking for businesses with either operational excellence or the ability to get to operational excellence, predictable cash flow, strong infrastructure and management teams that they think can execute, either that they're in place with the business or that they have them lined up and ready to go. So I think we're seeing good deal flow, but we're also seeing, I think, a really healthy amount of discipline in the approach.
- [07:09]
B
Thank you very, very much. And talk for a second, beyond sort of the health care and private equity deal making, we talked about alignment a decent amount. We're watching the deal market. What advice would you give to CEOs looking at deals or trying to grow their business? What are sort of the most important things you think about? Obviously, you've done a remarkably great job of building the healthcare practice at McGuire Woods. You've watch lot of other people build businesses that you work with as a lawyer really closely. What advice would you give to people about building businesses?
- [07:51]
C
Well, I'm kind of talking to the building businesses expert here, but I'll give you my, my simple opinion for what it's worth. I think that the culture can't be understated and I know it's a word that gets thrown around a lot and everyone says in culture is very important to them and everyone says they have a great culture. But I think in terms of thinking through what that means and how to protect it and how to make sure that the, the values of the culture are lived through everything, through the financials and through the incentives, culture is tremendously important. And it, it can really make or break what you're doing and challenges to culture can take things down and a strong robust culture can endure a lot. But I think culture is really, really important. And culture won't ultimately win at the end of the day, but it's a critical thing to have in place to set you up to win. I think exceptional leadership is also really important and that's kind of throughout the organization at all levels. But having really strong leadership that can both preserve the culture but also deliver business results, I think infrastructure is critically important. I think we saw a lot of businesses that were invested in, in kind of the early 2000s and 2010s, I think really grew through acquisition without having really robust infrastructure and core business functions. And I think now with being much, a much greater focus on having a really scalable infrastructure. And I think the final point is really around data and being really data driven and systematic in how they do things and metrics. And I think that to be a successful company you don't need to be the fastest growing company, but you need to have kind of those four core elements in place. So again, kind of really strong culture, great leadership, strong infrastructure and consistency and a data driven approach.
- [10:04]
B
Thank you very, very much. And talk a little bit about when you look at this next year, what are you most optimistic about?
- [10:14]
C
Oh, what am I optimistic about for the next year? I think I am really excited about healthcare innovation. I think we've seen so much change in the last year on AI, like more than I could have ever imagined in a one year time period. But I think we're gonna, we've, we've gone from seeing kind of rapid adoption. I think we're gonna start to see a lot more in terms of delivery, on results. And so I'm really excited to see how AI is able to solve, solve or start to bridge some of the really big challenges that plague our health care system in terms of analytics and workforce shortages and reduction of administrative burden and improve reimbursement solutions and really allow clinicians to deliver at the top of their license and do the things that they do really well with really good solutions behind them. I think we're going to really start to see some good progress forward with respect to that. And I think it's going to be really exciting and fun to see. Like from the start of my career, which was before I was a lawyer, I worked at Cerner Corporation and listening to Neil Patterson talk about what was possible in healthcare and healthcare as compared to the banking industry and how far behind it is in terms of solutions and it's not about limitations in technology. It's kind of how it's deployed and adopted. But I feel like a lot of those things that we talked about 25 years ago is still true now in terms of the gaps that we're trying to close. And I think we're going to see more rapid progress toward those goals with with AI.
- [12:03]
B
Thank you very, very much. Fascinating to listen to. Holly, always great to visit with you again. Holly Buckley, one of the best leaders I get to work with. Tremendous Chairperson of the McGuire Woods Healthcare Department and fabulous advocate for clients. Fantastic leader. Holly, thank you for joining us today.
- [12:23]
C
Thanks, Scott, you're too kind, but appreciate you having me on.
- [12:27]
B
Thank you very, very much.
- [12:32]
A
When you're a maintenance engineer in a beverage manufacturing plant, you keep production lines moving and quality on track because there is no room for slowdowns. With Grainger's vast selection of high quality motors, sensors, belts and hard to find parts, you can get what you need fast and all in one place. So nothing gets in the way of getting the job done. Call 1-800-granger clickranger.com or just stop by Granger for the ones who get it done.