Ropes & Gray Advised Ares’ Private Equity Group and DaVita in Strategic Investment in Elara Caring

Ropes & Gray advised Ares’ Private Equity Group and DaVita in a strategic investment in Elara Caring, a leading national provider of skilled home health, hospice, behavior health and personal care services. The investment is intended to expand access to personalized, clinically advanced care at home for patients with complex and acute needs. The transaction was announced on February 2 and financial terms were not disclosed.

As part of the investment, DaVita and Elara intend to co-develop a kidney-specific home-based care model. This new model will build upon Elara’s existing clinical capabilities and apply DaVita’s advanced clinical insights to meet the needs of patients with kidney disease, seeking to reduce preventable hospitalizations, and help to lower the total cost of care.

Ares Management Corporation is a leading global alternative investment manager offering complementary primary and secondary investment solutions across the credit, real estate, private equity and infrastructure asset classes.

DaVita is a comprehensive kidney care provider with 3,247 outpatient dialysis centers across the U.S. and in 14 countries.

Elara Caring is a leading provider of high-quality value-based home health care with 200 locations in 18 states.

The team was led by mergers & acquisitions partners Michael Beauvais and Tara Fisher and private equity partner Chau Le, and included business restructuring partner Cristi Schwarzman, finance partner Dan Coyne, executive compensation & employee benefits partners Allie Alperovich and Richard Kidd, employment partner Megan Bisk, tax partners Alyssa Kollmeyer and Pamela Glazier, data privacy & cybersecurity partner Fran Faircloth, IP transactions partner Emily Karlberg, real estate partner Sally Davis, mergers & acquisitions counsel Kelly Finn, and litigation & enforcement counsel Alison McLaughlin and Rupert Phillips.