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 February 2026. We will continue to track acquisitions on a monthly basis.
See January 2026 acquisitions here.
In February we tracked five buyouts, 51 add-on acquisitions, and 12 growth/expansion investments.
Private equity continued its acquisitions into home care and hospice
Two transactions completed in February:
Dovida, owned by Ardian, Verium, and Capital Transmission, acquired A Place At Home, a network of about 55 franchise home care providers across the US.Superior Home Health Care, owned by Renovus Capital Partners, acquired Pulse Home Health & Hospice, a Louisiana-based home healthcare company.
In addition, Kinderhook Industries announced that it will acquire Enhabit Home Health & Hospice for $1.1 billion in a deal expected to close in the second quarter of 2026. Enhabit operates 249 home health and 117 hospice locations across 34 states. In late February Enhabit entered into “an amended and restated credit agreement with a maturity date of February 2031 that consists of a $315.0 million senior secured term loan A facility and a $160.0 million senior secured revolving credit facility.” A Financial Times article on the sale raised some of the potential issues with the sale, including the company’s debt load: “Kinderhook is taking on a company whose health has deteriorated over time. High labour costs and operating expenses have taken their toll on the industry. The company’s operating cash flow has nearly halved since 2021. Moreover, Enhabit is already fairly indebted, so there is limited room to add more leverage.”
PESP covered private equity’s incursion into the home healthcare and hospice industries in a 2022 report. Home healthcare and hospice industries are dominated by for-profit companies: two thirds of all hospices were for-profit in 2017, and 80.6% of home healthcare agencies were for-profit in 2016. For-profit home healthcare and hospice companies have been linked to lower standards of care compared to their non-profit counterparts. Private equity firms, which often target outsized returns over short time horizons and finance many of their acquisitions with high levels of debt, may exacerbate that divide.
Private equity acquired at least four behavioral health companies in February through add-on transactionsThe Center for Social Dynamics, owned by Goldman Sachs and NMS Capital, acquired New Mexico-based Behavior Change Institute. Both companies focus on providing applied behavior analysis, a treatment for autism.Edustaff, owned by PPC Enterprises, acquired E-Therapy, a virtual and hybrid therapy provider for schools.Bradford Health, owned by Constitution Capital Partners and Lee Equity Partners, acquired Parkdale Center, an addiction treatment center in Indiana.Beacon Behavioral Partners, owned by Latticework Capital Management, acquired Carolina Psychiatry, a psychiatry practice in South Carolina.
Some of the companies acquired this month focus on providing care to children. PESP has written about the risks associated with private equity ownership of youth-focused behavioral health companies in the 2022 report, The Kids Are Not Alright: How Private Equity Profits Off of Behavioral Health Services for Vulnerable and At-Risk Youth. The report highlights that the private equity business model, which focuses on outsized returns over short time horizons, may prioritize profit over the well-being of children. Cost-cutting tactics at private-equity-owned youth behavioral companies, such as cutting staff, relying on unlicensed staff, and failing to maintain facilities, can lead to abuse, neglect, and unsafe living conditions for youth under the care of those companies.
The dental industry continues to be busy for private equity transactions
The largest volume of acquisitions we tracked in February was in dental care. Dental care has been one of the busiest areas of private equity deals since 2023. There were at least 18 transactions involving dental care in February, including general dentistry, oral surgery, and orthodontics.
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. PESP was featured in this recent Fox 4 Kansas City investigative story about patient complaints regarding private equity-owned Aspen Dental.