Rolling Up the Dentist: How PE Remade Dental Care

The Buyout Show with Fexingo: Private Equity, Roll-Ups, and Business Acquisitions · May 21, 2026 · 6m · transcript

Lucas and Luna examine the private equity roll-up strategy that has consolidated roughly 15 percent of US dental practices under corporate ownership. They trace the playbook from the first big platform acquisition of a single practice through the rapid-fire add-on deals that build regional monopolies. The hosts focus on Heartland Dental, now backed by KKR, which has aggregated over 1,700 locations by promising dentists equity upside and centralized back-office support. Luna challenges the assumption that corporate dentistry is purely predatory, pointing to data showing lower per-procedure…