Hi all - sending you this article from Budapest! This article is Europe inspired. Also, if you’re a GP or an LP attending McGuireWoods Conference in October, I’d love to meet you in Dallas. Please shoot me a note via replying to this email!
Before we dive into this week’s topic,
Road To Carry is proudly supported by WithCoverage
Your insurance broker makes more when you pay more. WithCoverage doesn't.
Traditional brokers earn commissions, so rising premiums are good for them. WithCoverage charges a transparent flat fee and gives you a dedicated in-house team: an insurance expert, an insurance attorney, a loss control specialist, and a claims manager, who are empowered by visibility and workflow tools (allowing them to give you savings). They close the coverage gaps traditional brokers won't read for and make 40+ A-rated carriers compete on price.
Typical savings of 20-40% on insurance spend. 1,000+ clients. 99% retention. One dashboard for every single portco's policies, claims, COIs, and renewals.
"20%+ cost reduction, better protection, and significant time savings. A total win-win for our portfolio companies and management teams." Robbie Patterson, Partner, Asto Consumer Partners
WithCoverage works with portfolio companies across leading PE Funds like LCatterton, Gryphon, Karp Reilly
State of Play
I’ve been in Europe the last week and a half so figured we’d get inspiration from one of the top European investors, EQT (side note: EQT is Swedish. Many well-known long-term compounders are also Swedish. What’s in their water?)
In 2018, EQT invested in a specialty drugs company Karo for ~$700 million. At the time, Karo was mostly a local Nordic name. By 2025, it had 80-plus consumer brands, operations in 90-plus countries, and was sold to KKR for ~$2.8 billion.
How did they do it? By acquiring over-the-counter (“OTC”) brands, many of which its big pharma competitors didn’t want to keep in their portfolio. From 2018 to 2025, OTC revenue went from ~25% of total to ~60%+.
In a world of pharma where patented specialty drugs are the prized jewels, EQT went the other way to consolidate OTC consumer healthcare products and was rewarded handsomely.
Replicable strategy in the U.S. LMM? Looks like there are others doing it.
Let’s dive in.