Sydney-based private equity firm Ironbridge Capital made headlines last month after selling hospital group Affinity Health Care for A$1.43 billion ($1.1 billion), allowing Ironbridge and its partners to triple their equity investment in just 18 months. The deal, one of the biggest and most successful LBOs in Australia, was a spectacular one for two-year-old Ironbridge. But the boardroom victory pales in comparison with the personal achievements of one Ironbridge player.
The firm’s investment chief, Tom Tucker, has been negotiating a private battle since Ironbridge took over Affinity in October 2003. Just after that deal was signed, Tucker learned that he had a large cancerous tumor in his brain -- a discovery made by chance during a hospital visit Tucker made after being hit in the face by a puck during a hockey game in Sydney.
But the bad news didn’t slow him down. “Life is what it is,” he says. “You take challenges as a bump on the road and just keep going.” A few weeks after the cancer was spotted, Tucker competed in New Zealand’s national ironman championship. “It was a feeling you can’t capture,” he recalls. He was a week away from having the apple-size tumor removed from his brain.
One year later, Tucker, 32, is back competing in triathlons. Just days before Ironbridge completed its exit from Affinity, in fact, he set a personal record in the first of three triathlons he’ll enter this year. At each race he’ll raise funds through his charity -- T4T -- for research into brain tumors. “I don’t know whether [the funding] will help me,” says Tucker, whose prognosis is still uncertain. “But it may help find some treatment for people in the future.”
