Meet the Team: Kirk Hamilton
What’s the deal with the deal team?
We are officially starting up a series that looks at life inside the Kensington team and introduce you to some of our key players. In this first installment, Senior Vice President, Kirk Hamilton sat down to talk about how he started his career in finance, filled us in on his life in London, U.K. and commented on our latest acquisition of the surgical division from Centric Health, now Clearpoint Health Network.
How did you get started in Private Equity?
I started my career in Europe working in London for investment banks advising businesses on mergers, acquisitions and other financing strategies and structures. After several years of working on transactions I was tired of only working on the transaction and not being a part of the strategy and growth of the businesses following the deal. I realized that I needed a change. With this in mind, I ended up working for two UHNW family offices helping them acquire other businesses and raise capital as well as support the management teams as they were building out and executing their strategies.
What advice would you give someone who is looking to work in Private Equity?
It’s important to have a solid foundation in M&A fundamentals and understand the deal process from start to finish. Given the typical small size of private equity teams and pace of work, it doesn’t lend itself to be a helpful training ground for those looking to enter the industry. My advice would be to spend a few years working for an investment bank in their M&A team or working with a ‘Big 4’ accounting firm in their transaction services group so that you’ve got the tools you need to be able to hit the ground running.
Can you talk about your path to Kensington Capital Partners?
After 10 years in the U.K., I decided it was time to return home to Toronto and began meeting with lots of people to try and understand the landscape here as it is very different from London. Through those meetings, I got to know Tom Kennedy and the team at Kensington. I began to help Tom on a particular portfolio business strategy they needed help executing. Working with them through that process allowed me to get to know more about Kensington and for them to get to know me. Needless to say, it seemed like a good fit on both sides, and I joined the team formally as that project was coming to a close.
Healthcare investments have been on the rise according to Bloomberg Financial. Recently, Kensington acquired the surgical division of Centric Health, can you tell us more?
The private equity team has been looking thematically at healthcare for about two years including multiple opportunities across the industry. Fundamentally, we like the underlying demographics and non-cyclical nature of the industry and we were looking for an opportunity to build and grow a business which could take advantage of these dynamics. The surgical division of Centric, now rebranded to Clearpoint Health Network, has all of those characteristics we were looking for and we are excited about the strategy and plans for the future.
Can investors expect more healthcare investments in the future?
In late 2019, we made a commitment to Revelstoke Capital Partners, a Denver, Colorado based private equity firm focused exclusively on healthcare with a tremendous track record. As part of that commitment, we co-invested in Beacon Orthopedics, a large orthopedic business in the tri-state area headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio. The investment in Beacon is highly complementary to our investment in Clearpoint and we see lots of opportunity to work with the team at Revelstoke sharing ideas and insights. We’ll continue to look for other great direct opportunities in the space, but in the near term we are focused on building Clearpoint and executing on the opportunities we see immediately in front of us.
What’s the vision for Clearpoint Health in the future?
We see an opportunity to continue to grow our partnerships and relationships with various regional health authorities and provincial governments to help provide surgical capacity across Canada and help reduce wait times for minor surgeries. We’ll also be on the lookout for other clinics which would be a great fit to the existing strategy and offer an opportunity to expand our presence in the Canadian market.
Visit us at www.kcpl.ca for more information. Follow us on Twitter for the latest news @kensingtonfunds.
