Growing Public 3776Growing Public 3776

Originally Published MX March/April 2005

COVER STORY

Interview by Steve Halasey

When Dennert O. Ware joined Kinetic Concepts Inc. (KCI; San Antonio, TX) in 2000 as president and CEO, the once-public company was under private management, having been taken out of the public market through a 1997 leveraged buyout. A market leader in wound-care therapies and specialty beds designed to promote patient recovery, the company was doing well on entering 2004.

It departed that year doing even better, and enjoying the support and confidence of an investing public that again owns it. KCI issued an initial public offering in February 2004, one of the first of a surge of 18 companies in the medtech sector to do so during a remarkable comeback year for the IPO market.