A new investment group has launched with the aim of buying and permanently holding successful British medtech companies, offering their founders an alternative to selling to private equity firms or larger rivals.
Qualeris, based in Birmingham, was founded by Peter Dines, a medtech chief executive, investor and board director with three decades of experience in the sector.
The company says it wants to acquire high-quality medtech products and services businesses and keep them indefinitely, rather than following the traditional private equity model of buying, restructuring and selling on within a fixed timeframe.
The group is aimed at owners of specialist healthcare and medical technology firms who are approaching retirement or succession but are reluctant to see their businesses absorbed into a larger organisation or passed through another cycle of ownership.
Dines said: “Over a 30-year career I have had the privilege of seeing specialist healthcare and medical technology businesses from several perspectives – as a founder, chief executive, investor and board member.
“One question has increasingly troubled me: what should happen to an exceptional founder-led business when its owner wants to step back, but does not want everything they have built to disappear into a larger organisation or simply enter another ownership cycle?
“Qualeris is our answer to that question.”
Under the model, acquired businesses will keep significant day-to-day autonomy, including their existing leadership, brand and operational culture, while drawing on shared resources and expertise across the wider group.
Qualeris describes its approach as “decentralised”, citing the listed British companies Judges Scientific and Halma, along with Canada’s Constellation Software, as models for combining local independence with disciplined, long-term capital allocation.
Dines said the group’s model was deliberately built around not exiting: “We want to build the kind of acquirer I would have wanted to sell my own company to.
“That means respecting what founders have created, remaining relentlessly focused on customers, giving talented leaders the freedom and responsibility to run their businesses, and sharing best practice in areas such as leadership development and operational improvement.
“Most importantly, our model is not based on acquiring a business with the intention of selling it again a few years later. We want to become its permanent home,” he added.
Qualeris said it would target established UK businesses with strong market positions, specialist expertise and sustainable profits.
The company summarised its aim as leaving “every business, every relationship and every generation stronger than we found it”.
“I genuinely feel that Qualeris is the company I have spent the last 30 years preparing to build,” Dines said.
“We are at the beginning of what I hope will be a very long journey, and our ambition is to build one of the most respected long-term homes for exceptional UK medtech businesses.”
