Hospice Provider BrightSpring Begins Trading on NASDAQ

BrightSpring Health Services, Inc. has begun trading on the NASDAQ under the stock symbol BTSG.

BrightSpring is a home- and community-based health care services platform that serves more than 400,000 patients daily. The company indicated its intent to go public in a Jan. 3 filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, expecting a $1 billion initial public offering (IPO).

“Our dedicated employees are the foundation of our mission-driven organization, and we are honored to have this opportunity to further invest in them in a unique way,” said BrightSpring CEO Jon Rousseau, in a statement. “As we continue to advance, investing in our people has remained at the forefront in order to deliver high-quality and cost-effective care to patients.”

Prior to going public, BrightSpring was owned by affiliates of the investment firm KKR Phoenix Aggregator L.P., and Walgreens Co., a portfolio company of Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc. (NASDAQ: WBA). These stakeholders will continue to hold the majority of Brightspring’s shares.

On Friday, the company indicated that it would award nearly $100 million in restricted stock to its 20,000 full-time, tenured employees.

“By creating broad and deep employee ownership on a large scale, we continue to demonstrate the company’s commitment to rewarding and further incentivizing our skilled and compassionate clinicians, pharmacists and caregivers and the broader BrightSpring team,” Rousseau said in a press release.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Jefferies Financial Group Inc., Morgan Stanley, UBS Group AG, Bank of America Corp., Guggenheim Securities and Leerink Partners are listed in the top tier of underwriters for the listing. Six banks and KKR are also listed in the filing as underwriters.

“We have tremendous respect for BrightSpring and are thrilled to support the Company and share in this momentous event,” said Max Lin, partner at KKR. “We are also excited to announce a significant broad-based equity grant program to thank thousands of hard-working and devoted employees for their significant efforts and further energize the collective organization as a quality-focused and innovative leader in health care services.”