Chris Gordon
Global Head of Private Equity, Bain Capital. On 1 show, 1 appearance. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
investorexecutivebaincapital.com/people/chris-gordon ↗
Chris Gordon joined Bain Capital in 1997, where he oversees the firm's global private equity operations and healthcare investment vertical, and helped launch its life sciences practice in 2016. He has led major healthcare investments, serving on the boards of HCA Healthcare, IQVIA, Acadia Healthcare, Waystar, and Surgery Partners.
1shows
1appearances
25statements
12resolved
11supported
1contradicted
92%fully supported
Everything Chris Gordon said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
PE IPOs Require Significant Post-IPO Growth Runway to Succeed
“The only way that we as a private equity investor can get value from an exit perspective, from an IPO, is by being able to deliver a company to the public market that has a lot of room to keep growing and creating value over time. Because We're going to be sel…”
Responding to M&A Rumors With Non-Denial Denials Only Fuels Speculation
“We don't engage in any misinformation or anything like that, so generally the best thing you can do is just sit quietly and let it go away on its own, because the more you're making awkwardly worded, non-denial denials, the more you're probably just be contrib…”
Gordon: HCA buyout sat at leading edge of pre-GFC take-private wave
“Shortly after HCA, as the debt markets heading right into the GFC got really hot, there was a period of time where lots of different public to privates could happen and frankly did happen, but HCA was really on the very, very front Edge of that, and maybe you …”
Unsophisticated Boards Threaten Take-Private Deal Value by Moving Slowly
“I've done a number of take privates over the years, and actually one of the hardest ways to do it is when you have an unsophisticated board, because they really just don't know what they need to be worried about, which I think can just cause them to need to mo…”
Gordon: Private companies can execute disruptive operational changes all at once
“In a public company setting, you might blend into that over time. In a private company setting, if it's the right thing to do, you do it all at once and accept the fact that that could create a little bit of disruption, but you're doing it for that long-term g…”
Gordon: HCA buyout focused on tactical optimizations over transformative restructuring
“This actually wasn't a case where we had a lot of very transformative initiatives in mind. HCA was a well-run company, and so this was much more a story about just Really focusing on a longer list of tactical optimizations with the idea that driving that kind …”
Gordon: Hospitals are fairly recession-insensitive despite potential coverage loss
“Hospital businesses are not recession immune, but they are fairly recession insensitive because you're delivering healthcare and people, well, maybe some larger portion of the population might lose their insurance coverage during a recession. There is good saf…”
Bain Capital Generated a 5x Multiple on 2006 HCA Mega-Buyout
“We ended up making about a five times multiple of money on that investment.”
Bain Capital Hedged Over 95% of Variable Debt in Early 2021
“Back in early 21, when no one believed interest rates could ever go up, we actually put in place swaps and hedges to swap out over 95% of our variable rate interest exposure across our entire portfolio”
2006 HCA Buyout Had a $33 Billion Enterprise Value
“Nobody would have really believed, and frankly, we weren't even sure in that 2005, six timeframe, could you really do a deal as big as HCA, which was a thirty-three billion dollar enterprise value transaction.”
Gordon: Early LBOs Succeeded Because Small Equity Accounts Magnified Growth
“Those were in the early days of LBO investing when you could Make those investments with very small equity accounts, and if you get good growth on a very small equity account, you can have a very successful investment, and so that turned out to be a very succe…”
Gordon: HCA Scaled Urban Hospital Capacity to Attract Top Physicians and Drive Profit
“If we can build the right capacity to be really important hospital systems in any given city, then that is going to put us in a position to be able to make the investments we need to make, to have the right capital base, to be able to attract the right physici…”
Gordon: Tommy Frist Jr. Initiated HCA Buyout Outreach in Late 2005
“And actually, Tommy called us. It was the original genesis of this for us back in, it was probably late, 2005, maybe early 2006, with what almost started off as, hey, I've got a crazy idea, because the transaction was so large that no one ever really would hav…”
Bain, KKR, Merrill Lynch, and Frist Family Backed HCA Equity
“It was Bain Capital, KKR, Merrill Lynch, and the Frist family speaking for the equity, but then we also needed to figure out how do we fill out north of twenty billion dollars worth of debt that was going to need to be underwritten for this transaction.”
Merrill Lynch and Three Other Banks Underwrote HCA Buyout Debt
“Merrill Lynch first managed to get their own internal approvals, not just for the equity, but for the debt. Speaking for about a quarter of the debt deals, we decided we needed three more banks to be able to fill out the whole thing. And so then we went to the…”
2006 HCA Deal Was the Largest Buyout Ever at the Time
“It was the largest transaction ever at the time, and by far the largest that had happened since the late eighties during that first wave of big LBOs.”
Bain Capital Executed $33B HCA Buyout Without Visiting Corporate Headquarters
“This might be the only time that I've ever bought a company without ever having actually visited the company's headquarters or real estate. All of this diligence Happened with the HCA management team. They were very much engaged in it, but in conference rooms …”
Gordon: Final HCA buyout proposal reached consortium's absolute price limit
“When we finally came back with our final proposal, it was literally our last dollar, probably even a little bit beyond what we thought our last dollar was going to be.”
Gordon: HCA Entered 2008 Financial Crisis Protected by Hedged Interest Rates
“Day one, that didn't affect our balance sheets. Our balance sheet was all underwritten and put in place, and we'd, you know, swapped out our interest rates, and so we had what we had from a balance sheet perspective.”
Gordon: HCA De-Levered via IPO as Debt Matured in 2011-2012
“We did go public, so that created a de-levering event. The debt markets, you know, improve a lot between 2008 or nine, which is when we would have been having this conversation, and 2011 or 12, which is really when our debt started to mature.”
HCA Advertised ER Wait Times on Electronic Billboards Under PE Ownership
“And then the next step, which I thought was brilliant, they started advertising ER wait times on electronic billboards.”
BAML Sold Its Entire HCA Stake Shortly After the 2011 IPO
“Unfortunately for them, they pushed to sell their HCA stake once we were a public company, certainly with the benefit of hindsight, earlier than was optimal, and so we went public sometime in 2011. They sold their whole stake shortly thereafter, and HCA went o…”
Gordon: HCA's IPO Raised Mainly Secondary Capital, Not Debt Paydown
“The IPO is actually mainly Secondary capital, because we had done a good job of growing into our capital structure and already going down the path of spreading it over time.”
Bain Capital exited HCA at around $75 per share after 2011 $30 IPO
“We went public at 30 dollars a share, which felt like a good valuation to us. And, but look, I don't think the Frist's have sold many of their shares over the years. And we ended up, I think, selling our last shares around 75 dollars a share or so.”
One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Chris's full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.
| Show | Role there | Eps | Statements | Record | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 CAPITAL ALLOCATORSLEDGER | Global Head of Private Equity, Bain Capital | 1 | 25 | 92% 11/12 | full record on Capital Allocators → |