General Industries: Gryphon Industry Success

Here’s a look at a select Gryphon portfolio company case study—evidence of the firm’s strategy and strength, including our focused efforts around partnering with management teams, optimizing operations and pursuing strategies that cement market leadership.

Bright Now! Dental
Gryphon’s investment in Bright Now! Dental began when the firm proactively targeted the $70+ billion dental services industry in partnership with a health-care services management team that included Steve Bilt.

A highly profitable, highly fragmented industry, Gryphon and Bilt were convinced the dental services market presented an opportunity for market leadership. Together, we identified the right acquisition to build a platform company. We completed the acquisition of Consumer Dental Offices in 1998, renaming the entity Bright Now! Dental. Within 90 days of that acquisition had orchestrated two additional acquisitions that provided the company a total of 46 dental offices in four key U.S. markets. Bilt was named CEO and, together with Gryphon, built a team and an infrastructure that is now the envy of the industry. A decade of exceptional organic growth, new office openings, and add-on acquisitions of publicly traded Monarch Dental and Castle Dental followed, positioning Bright Now! Dental as the industry leader with a national network of 300+ offices and revenues approaching $400 million.

The result of Bilt and Gryphon’s disciplined partnership—Gryphon realizing a return of $171 million at exit in 2005 on its aggregate investment of $71 million.