PE Firm Onex Reportedly Exploring Sale of BrightSpring, Formerly ResCare

Private equity firm Onex Corp. is considering a sale of home care giant BrightSpring Health, formerly known as ResCare, according to a Sept. 11 report from PE Hub.

PE Hub cited “people familiar with the matter” in its article. Onex had not responded to requests for comment from Home Health Care News as of press time.

Toronto-based Onex was founded in 1984 and currently has about $33 billion of assets under management. The company first invested in Louisville-based ResCare in 2004. Onex bought out the remainder of the home care provider in a deal that valued ResCare at about $384 million in 2010.

Last month, ResCare announced its rebranding as BrightSpring. The new corporate identity comes during a period of change for the organization.

In 2016, Jon Rousseau became the company’s CEO, following the 21-year tenure of Ralph Gronefeld Jr. Additional executive hires have since been made, as the company is undertaking an effort to position itself as a preferred partner for managed care organizations by offering a more complete continuum of care with a strong technology infrastructure.

BrightSpring already has significant scale and diverse service lines. Its large home care division provides services mostly to Medicaid beneficiaries. It also derives about 10% of its revenue from serving non-senior clients and patients, including through a neuro therapy arm. Overall, the company assists about 60,000 people daily across more than 40 states.

This is not the first time that sale rumors have swirled. In 2014, Onex was exploring a potential $1 billion sale of ResCare, Reuters reported at the time.

Should a sale take place now, BrightSpring would join other large in-home care providers to go through a recent change of ownership. The nation’s largest home health provider, Kindred at Home, was acquired last year by insurance giant Humana (NYSE: HUM) and two private equity firms. Earlier this year, three large providers merged to become Elara Caring. And two of the largest publicly traded home health companies, Almost Family and LHC Group (Nasdaq: LHCG), also recently combined.

Written by Tim Mullaney