Vistria invests in The Mather Group; Stone Point takes Tivity Health private

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Vistria invests in The Mather Group; Stone Point takes Tivity Health private

Good morning, Hubsters. MK Flynn and Kirk Falconer here with the Wire on a deal-packed morning.

Several deals caught our attention, including one by a pair of Chicago firms.

Wealth management. Middle-market PE firm The Vistria Group made a significant strategic investment in wealth management firm The Mather Group. The deal marks Vistria’s foray into wealth management.

Vistria, founded by Kip Kirkpatrick and Marty Nesbitt, spent about a year searching for a partner in the wealth management space, while at the same time TMG was looking to join forces with a PE firm, a spokesperson for the firms told me. “The two firms developed a rapport and announced a recapitalization today – and they happen to be located a few blocks from one another in downtown Chicago,” she said.

Return to fitness: Nasdaq-listed fitness company Tivity Health said it agreed to be taken private by Stone Point Capital. The deal is a big one: shareholders of Tivity will receive $32.50 in cash per share, for a total transaction value of $2 billion.

Selling Main Event: RedBird Capital Partners, best known in the market for its high-profile sports deals, is with Ardent Leisure Group selling Main Event Entertainment, a family entertainment business. The buyer, Dave & Buster’s Entertainment, has agreed to pay $835 million.

Neiman Marcus looks forward: Fashion retailer Farfetch is investingup to $200 million in luxury department store operator Neiman Marcus, which went bankrupt in 2020. It joins existing investors, among them Pimco, Davidson Kempner Capital Management and Sixth Street.

Cybersecurity resilience. Meanwhile, it’s been a busy week over at KKR. After yesterday’s announcement about the firm’s participation in the launch of Ownership Works, today we bring you the news that the private equity giant has made a new hire into Capstone – its value creation team – to focus on strengthening cybersecurity resilience in its portfolio. The move has implications both for deal sourcing as well as management of acquired companies.

Paul Harragan joined the firm in March as global cybersecurity lead for the firm’s portfolio companies, Private Equity International’s Carmela Mendoza reports.

That’s it for today. Chris will write tomorrow’s Wire.

All the best,

MK and Kirk

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