Marty Rash

Update 22 March 2016 9:25a: RegionalCare and Capella Healthcare announced merger plans. Rash to chair, PE Apollo is driver. - Ed.

Acquisition and operation of community hospitals with backing from Warburg Pincus is the new mission of three Nashville executives.

According to a statement provided VNC by Warburg Pincus today, the giant private-equity player will invest up to $300 million in the new venture.

RegionalCare's Hospital Partners' top management are all Province Healthcare Corp. alumni: Chairman and CEO Marty Rash; President and COO John Rutledge; and, Operations Vice President Sam Moody. They cashed-out in 2005, when LifePoint Hospitals bought Province.

During the past four years, Rash has been an investor in other local companies, including nTelagent., a revenue-cycle management firm.

During the same period, Warburg has been an investor in Spheris, the locally based medical-transcription company.

Forty-three-year-old Warburg Pincus has about $25 billion in assets under management, and since its founding has raised 12 private equity funds that invested more than $29 billion in about 600 companies in 30 countries. ♦