Overview
An M&A advisory team in North America was running the sale of a healthcare services company and needed a stronger read on the underlying market before buyer meetings. The process sat in the $160M range. Management could describe physician relationships, referrals, reimbursement, and growth. Buyers would test those claims.
The advisory team already had the CIM and the model. What it lacked was independent perspective from people still referring patients, practicing in the specialty, and watching competitive threats in the same markets. Those were the answers that would either hold up in diligence or reopen the price.
The team engaged Primary Insight to get structured access to physicians, former healthcare executives, referral sources, and other qualified participants with experience in the relevant specialty.
Challenge
The core challenge was not a lack of sale materials. It was a lack of independent, decision-grade context for the questions buyers would ask. Seller commentary had every reason to describe referrals as durable and growth as available. Secondary research could only go so far once sophisticated buyers started probing the mechanism.
Key open questions included:
How durable were the physician relationships that produced volume?
Were referral patterns still pointing at the company, or already leaking?
Did reimbursement dynamics support the growth case buyers would underwrite?
How real were competitive threats in the markets that mattered to the sale?
Where was market growth actual, and where was it only a planning assumption?
A weak answer in the room would put the $160M process on the back foot.
Approach
Primary Insight custom-sourced and qualified people against the specialty and the live sale questions. Candidates had to show current or recent experience before any conversation was scheduled.
The work ran as PI Calls built around physician relationships, referrals, reimbursement, competition, and growth. When buyer-prep conversations opened a second issue around referral concentration, sourcing continued until that point could be addressed with specificity.
Outcome
The research let the advisory team answer buyer questions with more precision and added independent market context during the process. Some of the seller case held. Referral and competitive detail was tighter than the materials had implied.
The $160M healthcare services sale moved through buyer discussions with a clearer, more defensible view of the market underneath the deck.
