Success Stories
ST Advisors leverages its Outsider Perspective With Insider Knowledge® to help companies address issues of all kinds. We've included here a few sample engagements to illustrate how we work with our clients and how we might add value to your business.
Adding value in an evolving relationship
Sandlot is a Health Information Exchange vendor developed and incubated by North Texas Specialty Physicians Group (NTSP), a risk-bearing multi-specialty physician group based in Ft. Worth Texas. ST Advisors began its relationship by joining the company for a one day “strategic diagnostic” session where we dug into the company’s solutions, management team and value proposition, as well as discussing its goals and objectives for growth.
Mutually agreeing that an ongoing relationship made sense, Sandlot retained ST Advisors and, in addition to weekly check-in calls, we provided a sounding board and an experienced perspective on both internal company-specific and external industry events. During this time we introduced Sandlot to many of the leading analysts in the space as well as helped field calls from potential investors and other interested parties.
While no specific transaction was indicated, ST Advisors recognized a potential fit with a specific
possible partner and facilitated an ongoing dialogue with Santa Rosa Consulting, a private equity-backed national provider of information technology and management consulting services to the healthcare industry. Both Sandlot and Santa Rosa immediately realized the potential value each could bring the other (ranging from technology to management depth and distribution). As trusted advisor to both parties, ST Advisors aided Sandlot and its board in assessing and negotiating (along with its counsel) a definitive term sheet to create a new company. Sandlot Solutions is now jointly owned by NTSP and Santa Rosa with Ben Rooks continuing his involvement by serving the new company as an outside board member.
A Trusted Advisor
Clairvia’s engagement of ST Advisors initially began with a series of assignments, starting with a brief strategic review and a discussion of its ultimate valuation drivers and potential strategic partners. Next, after a corporate rebranding, we were subsequently retained to help develop a management presentation to introduce Clairvia, its solutions and core value propositions to potential business and strategic partners.
From there, our relationship deepened to an ongoing retainer relationship where we worked with management to assess certain strategic options and goals. When it came time to contemplate a strategic exit, we worked with management to engage the appropriate investment bank and served as co-advisor in Clairvia’s sale to Cerner Corporation, bringing our transaction experience and strategic perspective to counsel the CEO as her “trusted advisor” throughout the process.
Outsourced Business Development
With $1.5 billion in US healthcare revenues, our client’s senior team was looking to expand its healthcare offerings to both higher value offerings and to increase their customer wallet share and so engaged ST Advisors to assist with their internal business development efforts.
Over a 5 month period, ST worked closely with our client to develop a targeted list of potential partners and acquisitions. After focusing the target list from almost a hundred candidates to the top 30, we made introductions between our client and the companies of interest. Several introductions led to deeper discussions and technical demos and many of these conversations remain ongoing.
At the end of our initial engagement window, ST and the client mutually agreed that there was still value ST could add to the business development process. At this time, they have extended our engagement and ST remains engaged with them as the process continues.
Market Analysis
ST Advisors was retained by a physician software company to help the company gain a comprehensive understanding of the physician billing market. The company was primarily interested in developing a clearer picture of the physician billing market structure, including an understanding of the significant market competitors and their differentiators. In addition, our client was looking for an understanding of overall market size, highlights of recent market activity, an overview of market trends pushing physicians to outsource billing, as well as an overview of trends in the billing outsourcing market.
We were able to deliver a thorough market analysis using our knowledge of the industry, publically available market research, data from public companies, industry reports and whitepapers, news articles, and data from the practice management company’s own lead management system.
We are proud to say that the client said that our deliverable was the “most comprehensive competitive market overview he'd seen”.
Strategic Diagnostic
In October 2010, our client was a single product company that offered a point-solution which enhanced an important aspect of a distinct hospital department. Looking to expand into new markets, management engaged ST Advisors to assess the demand for the client’s solution in an adjacent departmental market. ST Advisors conducted a rapid but thorough analysis drawing upon a combination of our specific market knowledge, publicly available data and a handful of expert interviews to develop our view that, yes, this was a market ripe for expansion.
The following spring (2011), our client had the
opportunity to acquire a product that would accelerate its market
entry with a unique solution developed by an academic medical center
for internal use. ST Advisors was retained for a brief product
assessment and diligence view on both the product's commercial
viability and its strategic fit. Our client remains in discussion
with the target, pending a financing event.
Six months later, we introduced our client to a company which could become both a distribution and capital partner. We continue to serve as an ongoing resource for this client.