TPG Billionaire David Bonderman Bets on Fertility With Family Office

(Bloomberg) -- David Bonderman is betting he can help women struggling to have a baby.

His family office, Wildcat Capital Management, is backing Spring Fertility, a Northern California chain that offers fertility treatments and egg freezing, according to a statement Tuesday that didn’t include terms. Spring Fertility plans to use the money to expand in the Bay Area and across North America. Founded by Peter Klatsky and Nam Tran, the company has a lab in San Francisco and patient centers in Oakland and Redwood City, California.

Bonderman, 76, the co-founder of private equity giant TPG, has seen success with other health-care-related wagers. He and his family office reaped a profit of at least $425 million from Gilead Sciences Inc.’s 2017 acquisition of biotechnology company Kite Pharma Inc.

TPG also is betting on health care with its newest $12 billion buyout fund, overseen by Todd Sisitsky and Jack Weingart. As of the end of 2017, TPG almost tripled its return from investments in health-care companies made since 2003, according to an investor document.

Bonderman amassed much of his roughly $2.5 billion fortune through TPG, which he founded in 1992 with Jim Coulter. The firm manages more than $104 billion in client assets. Bonderman, who became TPG’s chairman in 2014, set up New York-based Wildcat three years earlier to manage his money and cater to a small group of friends and relatives.

To contact the reporter on this story: Heather Perlberg in Washington at hperlberg@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Alan Mirabella at amirabella@bloomberg.net, Steven Crabill, Pierre Paulden

©2019 Bloomberg L.P.