Managers, Tailwind Capital Acquire Cumberland Consulting (The Tennessean)
Published: Wednesday January 4, 2012
Categories: In the News
By G.Chambers Williams III. Nashville-based Cumberland Consulting Group, a health-care information-technology firm, has been acquired by members of its management team and the private-equity firm Tailwind Capital, company officials said today.
Among the investors in the transaction were R. Clayton McWhorter and Stuart McWhorter, longtime participants in a variety of health-care ventures.
Jim Lewis, a founder and managing partner of Cumberland Consulting, said the investment by Tailwind and the McWhorters will help the firm expand and add about 45 employees over the next year, including some in the Nashville area.
The company, founded in early 2004, now has 148 employees, with about a third of them based in Nashville. Cumberland also has operations in 24 other states in the Midwest, South and Southeast.
“We’d like to expand farther west,” Lewis said. “While we do work anywhere in the country, we don’t do much west of the Rockies, and we’d like to become a national firm in the next few years.”
Cumberland is taking advantage of the growth of information technology in the health-care sector, especially with the rapid expansion of electronic medical record keeping.
“It’s an industry whose time is right, and we’re looking forward to some good years,” Lewis said.
“Tailwind has a proven track record of successfully investing in management-driven, growth businesses, and we’re pleased to have the opportunity to partner with them,” Lewis added. “We are also very excited to work with the McWhorter family, whose experience and success in operating and investing in high-growth health-care businesses will be a great asset.”
The transaction “represents a tremendous opportunity for Tailwind to invest in a proven platform that provides high-quality services to a dynamic industry in the midst of an IT transformation,” said Geoffrey Raker, Tailwind’s managing director.
No financial details were released. However, financing was provided by Deerpath Capital and Pinnacle Financial Partners, and Cumberland was advised by CHILDS Advisory Partners.
