Deals & Dealmakers: International Calibre

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Century City-based private equity firm StoneCalibre continued its expansion into the international life sciences space last week with another purchase made through its CalibreScientific unit.

CalibreScientific said it completed the purchase of Biozol Diagnostica Vertrieb GmbH, headquartered outside of Munich, Germany. Transaction details were not disclosed.

The deal came a week after CalibreScientific announced the acquisition of U.K.-based biotech firms Protein Ark and BioServUK,

Biozol is a life sciences products distributor that has upwards of 6 million stock keeping units in its portfolio. The company’s clients include universities, research institutions and pharmaceutical companies.

“We are excited to add BIOZOL to the CalibreScientific family as its size and scale in Germany presents actionable growth opportunities for the two companies,” said Ben Travis, CalibreScientific’s chief executive.

CalibreStone is led by Platinum Equity alum Brian Wall, who left the prominent Beverly Hills-based private equity firm in 2012 to launch his own outfit. StoneCalibre has 17 portfolio companies listed on its website, many in the life sciences, communications and software service spaces.

Making Waves

Wavemaker Three-Sixty Health, a Pasadena-based venture capital firm, launched a fund centered on so-called value-based health practices.

The fund, targeted at $25 million, will invest in early-stage health care companies in Southern California that aim to be paid for quality health care instead of fee-for-service, its executives announced this week.

The value-based care payment model, unlike traditional fee-for-service, rewards health care organizations for cost control and quality gains. Reimbursements are calculated by accounting for measures of quality and overall health, with providers pushed to better engage patients and to employ evidence-based medicine, improved health IT and data analytics.

“Healthcare’s transition away from fee-for-service to value-based payments started out a decade ago as a concept,” said John Nackel, founder and general partner in Wavemaker Three-Sixty, in a statement.

The fund is a joint venture between Wavemaker Partners, a venture capital firm based in West Los Angeles, and Three-Sixty Advisory Group, an investment advisory company based in Pasadena.

The Less-Green Rush

The green rush projected as part of California’s legalization of recreational cannabis has been more of a trickle so far.

California took in $61 million in revenues during the first quarter from the legalized marijuana industry, far below projections, state officials reported May 11.

A press release from the California Department of Tax and Fee Administration – which coincided with the release of Gov. Jerry Brown’s revised state budget – reported the statewide excise tax on cannabis generated $32 million in revenue for the first quarter of calendar year 2018. That pace would generate only about one-third of the $175 million in revenue that was projected for the first six months of the year on the excise tax alone.

The rest of the state’s tax revenue in the first quarter came on a cultivation tax that generated $1.6 million, and $27.3 million is sales tax.

A department spokesman said Los Angeles County’s share of the sales tax revenue generation was about $7.4 million.

Have a deal tip? Henry Meier can be reached at [email protected] or at (323) 556-8321.

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