PIERCETON – Two private equity firms that injected Paragon Medical with $25 million eight years ago are selling their joint stake, according to Dow Jones LBO Wire. New York firm Altaris Capital Partners and California-based Seidler Equity Partners seek to end their joint ownership, sources familiar with the situation told Dow Jones & Co. The Pierceton-based custom surgical instrument and implant component maker has hired investment bank William Blair to oversee the sale process, according to the report. Paragon CEO Tobias Buck, who founded the company in 1991, declined to comment to the Times-Union on the sale. “I am sorry but we do not discuss corporate capital construct issues of any nature with the media or outsiders as a matter of course,” he said in a statement this morning. The Dow Jones report notes the impact of the 2.3 percent medical device tax on the valuation of device makers, but also that valuations have stabilized as device makers have a gauge of the extent of the impact. Paragon said in a recent release that a research firm has placed it as the third largest in the world for overall market share, and that the global orthopedic contract manufacturing market is expected to grow at a compound average rate of 11.05 percent between 2012 and 2016. Altaris and Seidler together conducted a $25 million equity transaction with Paragon in August 2005. The funds supplied “growth capital for Paragon in support of both organic and inorganic growth initiatives,” the company said in a release at the time. Paragon later acquired four medical device companies in New Jersey and Florida in December 2005, and a Utah production facility in January 2006. Paragon today employs close to 1,000 workers at locations in Pierceton and Indianapolis; Smithfield, Utah; Lausanne, Switzerland; and Changzhou, China.
