When news broke that KKR — one of the world’s largest investment firms — was backing Family Doctor, a lot of people assumed the obvious: another Australian GP group had sold out to private equity. It’s a fair assumption, because that’s usually how the story goes. It isn’t ours.
The A$300 million facility KKR provided in 2025 is private credit — debt, not equity. We borrowed against the strength of the business to refinance and to keep acquiring clinics. What we did not do is sell shares, hand over a board seat, or give an external investor a say in how our doctors practise. Family Doctor remains 100% doctor-owned.
That distinction matters more than it might sound. When investors own equity in a medical group, the pressure to maximise their return can reach into clinical decisions — consult lengths, billing models, which services get prioritised. Debt is different. Our lenders want the loan repaid; they have no say over how a GP runs a consultation. Keeping ownership with doctors keeps those decisions where they belong.
It also changes the kind of business you build. Because we answer to patients and to our own doctors rather than to outside shareholders, we can take on practices that a pure-profit lens would walk past — including regional clinics at risk of closing. In 2022 we kept around a dozen of them open after their previous owner collapsed.
None of this means growth without discipline. Running 112+ clinics demands serious systems, governance, and capital. The point is simply that the capital can come in a form that funds the mission without diluting it. You can scale general practice and keep it in doctors’ hands. That’s the bet we’ve made — and so far, it’s paying off for the people who matter most: patients and the GPs who care for them.
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