Rich-listers ink tattoo removal deal with new $100m fund
The Queensland rich-listers who built a billion-dollar cancer-busting health empire are moving into a new lucrative field where the scars are largely self-inflicted.
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They are the Queensland rich-listers who built a billion-dollar cancer-busting health empire.
Now Cathie Reid and Stuart Giles are eyeing the burgeoning tattoo removal sector through a new $100 million investment fund launched with other cashed-up entrepreneurs.
The founders of Icon Cancer Group have joined a team of high-profile health care investors in announcing the establishment of the Heal Partners fund that will invest in US tattoo removal business Removery along with a raft of other health and lifestyle related businesses.
Texas-based Removery operates in 31 cities across the US and Canada, making it the largest and most clinically advanced specialised provider of tattoo removal and fade services in the world. Mr Giles said the plan was to eventually expand Removery to Australia.
QLD richlisters Cathie Reid and Stuart Giles have sold Epic Pharmacy to partner David Slade
Icon Group’s Stuart Giles knows how to run a company and a marathon
“Tattoo removal has taken off like a rocket over the last five years,” said Mr Giles. “In five years’ time, when we look at the most profitable businesses we have invested in, tattoo removal will be at the top.”
He said that while many people were motivated to remove tattoos to do away with their past, there was another more unusual reason.
“Sometimes people want to remove the name of their ex-partner after the relationship has ended,” he said. “But another common reason is they want to make room for new ones. It’s a bit like creating new real estate.”
Strict corporate employment policies regarding tattoos, changing personal preferences and poor artwork are the other major drivers of the tattoo removal market, which is expected to reach $US4.8 billion by 2023.
Mr Giles said Heal Partners, which is seeking to close its first $100 million funding round in the coming weeks, also will invest in Brisbane-based Edge Early Learning Centres, Canadian IVF business Fertility Partners and in Indonesia’s leading telehealth and pharmaceutical delivery health tech platform, Halodoc.
Other advisers in Heal Partner including former Ramsay Health Care chief executive Chris Rex, Navitas founder Rod Jones, Sandy Beard, the previous CEO of ASX listed investment fund, CVC Limited and Dr Andrew Meikle, the founder of DentalCorp Canada and Fertility Partners Canada.
Ms Reid said Heal would target health, education and lifestyle assets that are high-growth with global and regional potential.
Cathie Reid and Stuart Giles last month announced they would step back from the billion-dollar health empire they founded more than 20 years ago to focus on investments in the tech and health sectors.
After more than two decades at the helm of the Icon and Epic groups, the power couple who met as young university pharmacy students in the 1980s say the time has come for them to pass the baton.