Tornier: Building an Extremities Play in Orthopedics

01 Nov 2006

For years, investors from private equity firm Warburg Pincus and venture capital firm The Vertical Group contemplated the notion of building an orthopedics business in extremities, a subsegment the big orthopedics players had all but ignored. Now in French orthopedics company, Tornier, they believe they've found the perfect platform. The question is: can they strike gold in an area no one else has been able to mine?

For executives from global private equity firm Warburg Pincus and venture firm The Vertical Group, their first meeting with French orthopedics company Tornier Holdings SAS was far from auspicious. Introduced to the company by investment bankers at Brown Brothers Harriman, Sean Carney and Dick Emmitt, principals at Warburg Pincus and Vertical Group, respectively, flew to Paris in June of 2005 for an introductory meeting with Alain Tornier and his business advisor.

Both investors had heard of Tornier but didn't know much about the company. "It was on our radar screen, but...