Mortenson Dental Partners (MDP) announced that it has completed an affiliation agreement with West 10th Dental Group. Under the agreement, MDP will support four additional dental locations previously supported by West 10th Dental Group. With the completion of this transaction, MDP now supports 144 dental practices across nine states.
Strategic Rationale for the Transaction:
-
MDP currently supports 13 practices in the Indianapolis market, operating under the Gentle Dentist and Kid’s Dentistree brands, offering general dentistry, pedodontics and orthodontic services, primarily in the north, south and eastern geography.
-
West 10th’s footprint adds four locations in the western geography, including one multispeciality “hub” location offering general dentistry as well as orthodontics, periodontics, oral surgery, pedodontics and endodontics. The remaining three locations offer general dentistry services.
-
The complementary geography, new dental specialty services and hub model also provide a future development opportunity to add to existing markets supported by MDP or new markets.
-
MDP’s scalable and proprietary dental support platform is leveraged to efficiently reduce non-clinical burdens innate to operating dental practices in the United States, all while keeping clinical autonomy in the hands of dental service providers.
-
In the first year after affiliation, the combined companies expect to provide dental care to nearly 500,000 unique patients through over 1,000,000 patient visits to MDP’s supported practices.
Bill Becknell, chief executive officer of MDP, commented: “We are thrilled to grow the footprint and service offerings supported by MDP. For many years, MDP has supported general dentistry and specialty dental services in various markets, while West 10th Dental Group has provided high-quality dental care to its patients through a unique ‘multi-specialty hub’ model. Dr. Brent Barta’s dedication to quality care delivery along with his unique approach to bringing a breadth of comprehensive specialty dental services under one roof are both impressive and exciting.
We’re exceptionally proud and pleased to welcome the team members, patients and referral sources of West 10th Dental Group to our growing family of supported dental practices. We also thank all of our team members for their daily dedication in supporting the provision of the highest quality dental services in the communities we serve.”
Dr. Brent Barta, chief executive officer of West 10th Dental Group, commented: “The West 10th family has spent years holistically serving the dental needs of our patients through a breadth of specialty dental services paired with general dentistry services. With our growth in recent years, it became clear that we needed to affiliate with a high-quality, trusted support platform to continue to grow and more fully support the needs of our patients, employees and referral sources. After a decade of working with MDP employees and understanding the alignment of their values to ours, MDP was the clear choice. We could not be more excited with our affiliation and the opportunity to continue building what we started 40 years ago.”
Jeff Reibel, chief financial officer of Mortenson Dental Partners, commented: “The strategic partnership provides a great growth opportunity for our investors who are exclusively our supported doctors and team members who either have direct ownership in the company or ownership through MDP’s Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP). We want to recognize the exemplary support by our lending team, Fifth Third Bank, JPM and Truist in funding and supporting the transaction under our $120 million credit facility, which also includes a $30 million accordion.”
