Carving out a PE-backed healthcare services business — three ways at once

Situation

Some leadership teams face one complex transition at a time. This one faced three at once.

A private equity-backed healthcare staffing and services company had been operating three distinct service lines under a single legal and operational entity in a heavily regulated industry served by government payors. The sponsor and management team made the strategic decision to align the legal and operational structure with how the business went to market: as three separate businesses. At the same time, they decided to sell one of those businesses.

Complicating matters further, a prior acquisition’s finance function had never been fully integrated. Eight months after closing, the ERP migration had stalled and still needed to be completed. Management couldn’t afford to step away from running the day-to-day to untangle all of it. They engaged Growth Operators to be the operational backbone that held every workstream together.

Execution

During our engagement, the Growth Operators team:

• Served as the operational hub across all legal restructure workstreams, managing dependencies, sequencing decisions, and making sure nothing fell through the cracks while management stayed focused on running the business
• Led completion of a stalled post-acquisition finance integration, including migrating the acquired company’s ERP to align with the parent’s systems
• Ran the go-to-market process end-to-end: data collection, financial analysis, diligence material preparation, and day-to-day coordination across legal counsel, investment bankers, and management
• Managed full entity separation for all three business lines, standing up new legal entities, establishing payroll systems, completing state registrations, restructuring HR programs, and addressing the regulatory requirements specific to government-payor healthcare
• Deployed resources scaled to the engagement’s needs from Finance Manager to Sr. Director with specialized talent across finance, HR, and operations

Results

• Completed the post-acquisition ERP migration that had stalled for eight months
• Sold one business unit to a strategic buyer, now operating independently post-close
• Kept the go-to-market process and entity separation running-both workstreams concurrently and on track
• Moved new payroll systems and state registrations forward for all newly formed entities
• Allowed the management team to stay focused on day-to-day operations throughout the engagement

Client Success

A carve-out is hard. A carve-out, a sale, and a finance integration all running at the same time, in a regulated industry, is the kind of situation where things fall through the cracks. Unless someone owns the cracks.

That’s the role Growth Operators played. We became the connective tissue across every workstream, sequencing the work so the legal restructure, the sale, and the integration could move forward together rather than competing for the same attention. The management team never had to take its eyes off the business.

That’s what it looks like when you bring in operators instead of consultants. We don’t hand the leadership team a plan and a deadline. We pick up the work, carry it alongside them, and keep the whole thing moving even when “the whole thing” is three transitions at once.