A recent U.S. Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) antitrust lawsuit against a private-equity owner of a large anesthesiology practice in Texas demonstrates that the FTC has begun to implement its more aggressive focus on the perceived competitive harms caused by certain “roll-up” acquisition strategies.
Private equity firms commonly employ roll-up strategies involving the serial acquisition of multiple companies in a single market and consolidation under a single entity. This strategy is frequently seen, for example, in the health care industry. According to the proposed Merger Guidelines released by the U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”) and the FTC on July 19, 2023, “a firm that engages in an anticompetitive pattern or strategy of multiple small acquisitions in the same or related business lines may violate [the antitrust laws], even if no single acquisition on its own would risk substantial lessening of competition.” READ MORE