Minnesota Eye Consultants is pleased to announce a long-term partnership with Waud Capital Partners, based in Chicago, Ill. This partnership provides Minnesota Eye Consultants a foundation to collaborate with other practices in the Twin Cities region more closely, to expand and grow services, and realize greater efficiencies through scale.
Minnesota Eye Consultants is recognized as a national leader in sub-specialty consultative ophthalmology, and vision research. Minnesota Eye Consultants core competencies include refractive surgery, cataract & implant surgery, glaucoma and cornea treatment and surgery, ophthalmic plastics, consultative ophthalmology, and optometry.
Founding partner and surgeon, Dr. Richard Lindstrom said, “This partnership equips us with capital investment power we need to own and lead our market amidst the current economic demands, as well as equips us to navigate the scalability required for future years’ success. In addition it will enhance our ability to manage risk sharing effectively, and allow us to boldly grow and adapt.”
This partnership will support the already established philosophy and mission of Minnesota Eye Consultants: to preserve, restore, and enhance vision through research, teaching, and providing the highest quality medical and surgical care to patients. Patient care will continue to be led by Minnesota Eye’s national recognized team of providers. Currently, the team consists of thirteen ophthalmologists, one ophthalmology fellow, eleven optometrists, one optometric fellow, three Physician’s Assistants and approximately three hundred employees, all of whom operate out of six clinic locations, four laser centers and four ambulatory surgery centers.
“Our partnership with MEC is the result of carefully studying the vision market over the last three years and identifying the leading providers of care across the U.S,” said Chris Graber, Principal with Waud Capital. “Early in our efforts, it became clear that Minnesota Eye Consultants was one of the industry’s leaders, with a national reputation for quality of care. We’re thrilled to partner with Dr. Lindstrom and the team at MEC and believe their commitment to clinical leadership and patient experience provide an extraordinary foundation for growth.”
About Minnesota Eye Consultants
Founded in 1989, Minnesota Eye Consultants provides comprehensive eye care services through a team of 25 ophthalmologists and optometrists. The organization provides clinical services through a network of six offices in Minnesota, including four dedicated ophthalmology-focused surgery centers. Minnesota Eye has established a national reputation for clinical excellence through its distinguished fellowship program and commitment to clinical research and education.
About Waud Capital Partners
Based in Chicago, Waud Capital is a leading private equity firm founded in 1993 that partners with exceptional management teams to acquire or create platforms in the U.S. lower middle market through control-oriented growth equity investments, industry consolidation, buyouts or recapitalizations. WCP seeks to invest $50 million to $100 million (including follow-on investments) of total equity in each platform company and employs a disciplined three-phase investment strategy with staged investments designed to generate superior risk-adjusted returns. Waud Capital targets services businesses in large, growing, fragmented markets within two industries: healthcare services and business and technology services. Typically, the initial platform companies in which Waud Capital invests have enterprise values between $50 million and $250 million. WCP has approximately $2.1 billion in assets under management. Since its founding, Waud Capital has successfully completed more than 200 investments, including platform companies and follow-on opportunities.
