PE Hub's Top Stories of 2023: Blackstone promoted Anushka Sunder, dealmakers experimented with ChatGPT, and Rite Aid put Elixir up for sale

As the year winds down, we've been taking a look back at the stories we wrote this year that most resonated with our readers. Here are five of the year’s most popular stories on PE Hub:

Exclusive

Editor-in-chief Mary Kathleen Flynn's exclusive back in February about Blackstone's tapping Anushka Sunder to head healthcare for PE North America topped PE Hub's list of the most read stories of 2023.

The move marked a promotion for the senior managing director and reflected the New York PE firm’s increasingly large bet on the healthcare sector.?At the time of her promotion, Sunder eyed opportunities in today’s market that Blackstone is well positioned to seize, given its size, resources and experience in the sector.

“For private companies today that may have been looking to an IPO as a form of exit and monetization for the current shareholder base, that exit pathway is, at a minimum, pushed out a bit,” Sunder said. “And so, if someone is looking for liquidity, or a mark, or support for scale M&A, or even a partial monetization, I think that universe of opportunities – especially at scale, where there is not a robust field of 10 to 15 sponsors that can transact – becomes a potential opportunity and entry point for certain high-quality businesses.”

Sunder pointed out that Blackstone’s healthcare portfolio “is not necessarily obvious assets that existed in their current form,?previously?owned by a sponsor.?Medline was family-owned.?Precision Medicine was founder-led?and had?investors alongside them.?HealthEdge?has been a buy-and-build, where we started with one asset and have fundamentally transformed that business in the last three years through?strategic M&A.”

Ubiquitous

Another story popular with our readers was reporter Obey Martin Manayiti’s feature, Why private equity firms still love enterprise software published in April.

“Private equity will always love software,” explained Pete Dalrymple, managing director and co-head of technology investment banking at William Blair. “Maybe the valuations are different, but the fundamentals are not. Software is embedded in our daily lives and is ubiquitous across numerous industries and use cases. In good markets and bad, investors appreciate the recurring and predictable nature of these businesses, their capital efficiency, and the additional M&A opportunities that oftentimes come along with owning a platform of scale.”

Boiling the ocean

As dealmakers grappled with how to leverage new technologies, reporter Rafael Canton’s June story, How ChatGPT, generative AI are beefing up PE deal sourcing, became essential reading for many.

?In the past, it would take a PE firm a week or several weeks to pull lists and add contacts. Next would be a process of inputting the contacts into a customer relationship management system and then creating a mail merge.

?“If a source servicing provider can boil the ocean for me and identify 100 targets that we feel really good about and I can get emails out to those people in 24 or 48 hours versus the olden days, the vault, the volume and the velocity that these tools can bring to deal sourcing is tremendously valuable,” Jessica Ginsberg, managing director of business development at lower mid-market private equity firm?LFM Capital, told?Rafael.

Dinner and a movie

The emergence of streaming platforms as a viable alternative to movie theaters at the height of the pandemic left a lasting imprint on the sector, making multiplatform entertainment especially alluring for private equity, wrote reporter Iris Dorbian in a story that drew readers’ attention.

Back in 2021, through its media rollup Candle Media,?Blackstone?capitalized on the phenomenon that’s transforming content by?acquiring a wide array of Hollywood production companies, most prominently Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine. Since then, quite a few buyout shops have jumped into the fray, investing in everything from a new production company co-founded by Hollywood A-listers and BFFs Ben Affleck and Matt Damon to a content studio focused on people of color.

Iris rounded up the deals in her April story, Private equity goes to the movies: 6 deals in 6 months.

For sale

Senior reporter Michael Schoeck’s in-depth reporting on ongoing auctions for Rite Aid’s assets also proved popular with readers.

In his initial story in November, Bankrupt Rite Aid’s Elixir business ripe for mid-market PE buyout, Michael reported that the Elixir Rx Solutions pharmacy benefit manager (PBM) business of bankrupt Rite Aid is expected to attract mid-market private equity interest. Potential PE bidders may be willing to offer a premium above the stalking horse bid of $575 million from privately held MedImpact Healthcare Systems.

Later, Michael reported that the auction for Elixir was postponed from November 20 to December 21, the same date as an auction for Rite Aid’s retail stores.

Michael's watching this one closely.

For ongoing coverage of private equity deals and dealmakers, visit PE Hub and PE Hub Europe.

Note: Due to the holidays, there will be no Wire Weekly on December 28. The next edition will come out on January 4, 2024.