Centerbridge Partners and Caisse de dépôt et placement du Quebec are nearing a deal to buy Medsol, a travel nurse staffing firm backed by TPG, according to people familiar with the matter.
The deal could be announced within days and would value the company at about $2.3 billion including debt, the people said, asking not to be identified discussing confidential information. No final decision has been made and the deal could still fall apart, they said.
TPG Growth acquired Medical Solutions in 2017 for about $500 million, according to media reports at the time, and the private equity firm had hired advisers earlier this year to explore a sale of the Omaha, Nebraska-based company.
Medical Solutions places temporary medical staff like travel nurses at more than 2,200 health-care facilities around the U.S. Demand for its services is expected to grow with staffing needs related to the pandemic, as well as an aging population.
Representatives for Centerbridge, CDPQ and TPG declined to comment. A spokesman for Medical Solutions, also known as Medsol, didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment outside of normal business hours.
Health systems are seeing higher turnover and attrition, and more vacant positions that take longer to fill in some cases due to worker burnout, which was high among health-care workers even before the pandemic.
Demand is highest for nurses, who make up the largest part of the clinical workforce. Hospitals in rural areas are particularly reliant on travel workers, like the ones staffed by Medsol. So are understaffed hospitals that have relied on traveling health-care workers to fill gaps during the pandemic.
