Private Equity Health Care Acquisitions – August 2025

In light of continued investor interest in healthcare and therisks associated with private equity ownership of healthcare companies, the Private Equity Stakeholder Project is tracking private equity-backed healthcare acquisitions. Below is a list of private equity healthcare buyouts, growth investments, and add-on acquisitions completed during August 2025. We will continue to track acquisitions on a monthly basis.

See July 2025 acquisitions here.

In August, we tracked 19 buyouts, 73 add-on acquisitions, and 22 growth/expansion investments. 

Sycamore Partners acquires Walgreens in a leveraged buyout

On August 28, 2025, private equity firm Sycamore Partners announced it had finalized its $22+ billion acquisition of Walgreens, immediately unveiling plans to split the company into five standalone businesses: Walgreens, The Boots Group, Shields Health Solutions, CareCentrix, and VillageMD.

After months of discussions with Sycamore Partners about the buyout, Walgreens late last year announced plans to close 1,200 stores. Store closures could accelerate under Sycamore Partners’ ownership. Research shows that pharmacy closures disproportionately impact low-income, rural, and minority communities, and can create “pharmacy deserts” where patients lose access to essential medications and services.

Additionally, private equity firm Sycamore Partners appointed the Staples CEO to run Walgreens upon acquiring the company. Sycamore Partners also currently owns Staples. If Sycamore closes as many stores at Walgreens as it did at Staples (33%), it could mean over 70,000 layoffs.

The Walgreens acquisition is the latest example of private equity’s growing footprint in healthcare, which has too often led to higher costs, reduced quality of care, widespread job losses—and rising bankruptcy risks.

Private equity continues dental practice acquisitions

Private equity acquisitions of dental practices continued in August, with dental care being the busiest category tracked, with at least 22 deals.

Nine private equity-backed dental care platform companies together made at least 20 add-on acquisitions in August:

• Dental365, backed by TJC, Regal Health Care Partners, and The Cambria Group, added eight dental and one endodontic practices: Penturf Dentistry, Foundation Dental, Firestone Family Dental, Frankel & Puhl Dentistry, Lennon Dental & Associates, Hempfield Dental Care, Garden Spot Dental Care, Frankel Dentistry, and Riverbend Endodontics. The August acquisitions marked Dental365’s expansion into Ohio, its eighth state.
• S. Oral Surgery Management, owned by Oak Hill Capital, added four oral and maxillofacial surgery practices to its portfolio: Snyder & Dugan Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, Panossian Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery, South Central Oral Surgery, and Premier Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery.
• MAX Surgical Specialty Management, backed by MedEquity Capital, RF Investment Partners, and Kian Capital, bought two oral surgery practices in Pennsylvania: Lebanon & Lancaster Oral Surgery and Greater Philadelphia Oral Surgery. RF Investment Partners is invested in two other portfolio companies: Specialty Dental Brands, a “leading dental practice management company with a focus on the pediatric dental market,” and Select Dental, a “leading dental practice management company,” with similar business profiles.
• T Management (Georgia Oak Partners) added Life Point Dental to its portfolio of ten dental practices.
• Sage Dental Management (Linden Capital Partners) acquired The Dental Group in Fort Lauderdale, FL and will operate it as Sage Dental of Oakland Park.
• Chord Specialty Dental Partners (Rock Mountain Capital) acquired J Pediatric Dentistry, a pediatric dental group with three practices across the Indianapolis region.
• BeBright (InTandem Capital Partners) acquired Brink & White Pediatric Dental Associates.
• Southern Orthodontic Partners (Shore Capital Partners) acquired TC Orthodontics, a practice with seven offices in the Minneapolis region.
• Specialized Dental Partners (Quad-C Management) added Endodontics of Castle Rock to its portfolio of over 250 practices across 35 states.

In addition to the frenzied roll-up of dental care providers, Great Hill Partners acquired a majority interest in Blue Cloud Pediatric Surgery Centers, an outpatient surgery center company with 32 locations across 13 states. The company markets itself as providing “high-quality general anesthesia dental care for pediatric and special needs patients.”GarMark Partners also made a growth investment to SALT Dental Partners, a private equity-backed operator of 153 pediatric dental practices.

Dental care has consistently been one of the busier categories that PESP has tracked in private equity dealmaking this year. And in 2024, dental care had the highest deal activity of any healthcare category tracked by PESP, accounting for at least 161 deals, an increase of 10.3% from 2023. Over half of the busiest platform companies in 2024 were dental care companies, four of which are reflected in August 2025’s deals. For more information about last year’s dealmaking in healthcare, see: Private Equity Healthcare Deals: 2024 in Review.

An August 2024 study published in Health Affairs has found that private equity affiliation with dental practices nearly doubled for the period 2015-2021, from 6.6% in 2015 to 12.8% in 2021. The study found the highest growth among dental specialties such as endodontists and oral surgeons, which more than doubled during the period.

In November 2024, KFF and CBS published an exposé detailing a growing trend of dentists pulling out “healthy” teeth in order to profit from implants.  At dental practices around the country, patients have been reportedly encouraged to get dental implants, which can cost tens of thousands of dollars, instead of keeping their teeth and getting treatments like root canals. The article highlighted how multiple private equity-owned dental care chains may be contributing to this trend. One company, ClearChoice, which is owned by Ares Management, American Securities and Leonard Green & Partners, allegedly used salespersons, or “patient education consultants,” to meet with patients about options like dental implants before the patient had even seen a dentist, according to a lawsuit filed against the company.

PESP’s 2021 report on private equity in the dental care industry highlights the risks to patients in private equity-owned dental practices, including overtreatment, misleading advertising, and Medicaid fraud. The risks to quality of care may be driven by profit-driven practices in order to create returns for investors.