European private equity firm, Cinven, today announces it has agreed to acquire the UK psychiatric care business, Partnerships in Care Limited, from General Healthcare Group for £552 million (€800 million) net of cash.

Partnerships in Care is the UK's leading independent provider of specialist mental health and related services. The services it provides include medium secure psychiatric services, specialist units for people with learning disabilities, specialised services for women, brain injury rehabilitation units, community placements for supported living and employee assistance programmes. It operates over 800 beds in its 12 facilities around the UK and employs over 2,500 staff.

Cinven owned General Healthcare Group, Partnerships in Care’s parent company, from 1997 to 2000.

Cinven Partner, Simon Rowlands commented:
“We are very pleased to have acquired this very high quality, market-leading business. We already had a strong, trusted relationship with the management of Partnerships in Care dating from our ownership of General Healthcare and our knowledge of the business and its market meant we were able to act decisively to put together an attractive offer in a relatively short timescale. It also meant that we were quickly able to understand and assess the strategy for the future of this business and structure an offer to help management achieve its objectives going forward.”