Financing the Age Wave

When all those millionaires, mutual fund managers and hedge fund investors yank their money out of the stock market, they have to put it somewhere. With the backing of billionaire private equity investor Thomas H. Lee, Bethesda, Md.-based Midcap Financial is one place that money is winding up.

Midcap Financial announced its formation Monday with $500 million in private equity commitments. "Demand for healthcare services is expected to increase markedly as the Baby Boomer generation ages, creating higher demand for the full range of healthcare services," said CEO Howard Widra, founder of Merrill Lynch's healthcare finance division and former president of GE Healthcare Financial Services.

According to Eric Wicklund at Healthcare Finance News, the company will fund the following types of opportunities:

• Real estate loans to senior housing, skilled nursing facilities and medical office buildings.


• Working capital loans collateralized by third-party accounts receivable and their assets.


• Leveraged loans to healthcare companies backed by private equity sponsors.


• Life sciences loans, primarily to pharmaceutical, biotech and medical device companies.

Booming Business around the Globe

Some time back we pointed the readers of our Boomer Project free newsletter, Jumpin' Jack Flash, to the Trendwatching Web site and newsletter.

Trendwatching searches the globe for the latest trends and reports on what they find bi-weekly, monthly and in an annual report.

This week they share a mini-report on Booming Business around the globe.

It's a good summary of what is happening right now on the Boomer front.

(We'll give them a pass for not contacting us directly for some insights, only because several of our subscribers are listed as contributors to the report. So we know we were a source nonetheless -- especially since we wrote about several of their recent "finds" over the months and years.)