One of Britain’s biggest privately owned providers of specialist mental health services is to be put up for sale four years after it was created through a buyout from The Priory Group.
Sky News has learnt that BC Partners, the private equity firm, has appointed bankers at JP Morgan to run an auction of Elysium Healthcare.
The company, which is expected to change hands in the coming months, was formed in 2016 from the acquisition of 22 Priory and Partnerships in Care hospitals.
Image: Elysium offers services including children’s mental healthcare
Since then, it has expanded significantly, and now operates 75 sites providing disability services, neurological and specialist mental healthcare, as well as child and adolescent mental health services, rehabilitation and acute and intensive care.
Last month, Elysium acquired a hospital in the south-west of England which specialises in treating patients with serious eating disorders.
BC Partners’ price expectations from a sale of the company are unclear, although it will seek a valuation far above the roughly £300m it paid for the original 22 sites.
Joy Chamberlain, the chief executive, is expected to be a big beneficiary of any transaction.
News of JP Morgan’s appointment comes as the Priory Group itself is being marketed for sale by Acadia Healthcare, a US-based company.
An attempt to offload Priory – best-known for its rehab clinics’ treatment of celebrities such as Kate Moss and Robbie Williams – stalled earlier this year during the initial phase of the coronavirus pandemic.
BC Partners and JP Morgan declined to comment on Thursday.