Frankfurt-based investment firm Rantum Capital has acquired Tontarra Medizintechnik GmbH, a German developer and manufacturer of high-precision, premium surgical instruments and endoscopy products. The acquisition reflects a broader trend of an increase in private equity interest in medtech, specifically precision surgical instrument manufacturing. As per Arvin Abraham, partner at Goodwin, who co-chairs the firm’s European Healthcare practice, Germany in particular thrives in medtech because of its Mittelstand businesses — the mid-sized, often family-run, industrial powerhouses which focus on a range of areas, including higher precision industrial manufacturing. “They’re at a size and scale where they’re very attractive target groups for PE,” Abraham tells us.
According to Abraham, the sector is also attractive to investors due to its resilience. “For private equity, many of the sectors that they’ve traditionally invested in are either being disrupted out of existence due to AI or have become very difficult to invest in because of geopolitics. Medtech, by contrast, has remained resilient,” says Abraham. “There is a lot of appetite from American private equity. There’s a strong drive to deploy dry powder. Capital is looking for a safe home, and healthcare, medtech in particular, is one of the safest places to invest today,” he adds. “If you’re looking at targets and they’re not already anticipating the impact of MDR and don’t have MDR compliance programs in place, that’s a huge risk,” says Abraham, adding that investors may need to factor the cost and risk of getting compliant into the price.
Read the Healthcare Business International article for more.