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Private equity sponsors are sitting on a massive backlog of health care services exits. 

Zoom in: Two scoops on deals show exits are still coming in fits and starts.

The latest: GI Partners recently launched its auction for clinical trial tech business Clinical Ink, with indications of interest due in a couple of weeks, two sources tell Axios Pro.

Centerview and Guggenheim are running the process for Clinical Ink, which generates more than $100 million in revenue and about $30 million of EBITDA.

Thermo Fisher bought Clinical Ink rival Clario for $8.9 billion last year. That could create a tailwind for Clinical Ink, one source says, as other CROs hunt for alternative tech vendors.

GI Partners declined to comment. Centerview and Guggenheim did not respond to a request for comment.

The other side: Knox Lane pulled its process for pharma marketing business Fingerpaint Group amid valuation discord, two sources tell Axios Pro.

Knox Lane wanted about 16x Fingerpaint's $65 million of EBITDA, one source says.

Knox Lane did not respond to a request for comment.

Between the lines: Sponsors and bankers have largely moved away from the linear auction process, preferring to quietly test the market by sounding out a handful of potential buyers. 

 "It's calling five or six people. It's putting a valuation marker out there. 'But we're not running a process,'" a banker said during a recent conference panel, adding this has helped tighten the bid-ask spread.

Reality check: "We have a scarcity of conviction that I've never seen," said one secondaries manager during a panel on liquidity. "Capital is available and out there, but people are just overly cautious."

As referenced by the New York Times last December — and told to me several times in Miami last week — the "dark joke circling around the industry is that many private-equity firms have already raised their last fund but don't know it yet."

The intrigue: New Mountain Capital was looking at a $30 billion-plus health tech exit with its Thoreau deal, but talks with former private equity president Matt Holt broke down last week, Axios confirmed.

The roll-up would have offered attractive comparables for other deals, as well as represented a potentially mighty strategic acquirer for sponsor-backed businesses.

Health care's exit backlog hits critical mass

Two scoops on deals show exits are still coming in fits and starts.

Illustration of a handshake, repeated backward several times. 

Private equity sponsors are sitting on a massive backlog of health care services exits. Zoom in: Two scoops on deals show exits are still coming in fits and starts.

Health care's exit backlog hits critical mass

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