Winners in the medical-device industry corral three things: capital, management talent, and a strong technology platform. At Tornier, Kohrs has all three.
In July, East Coast investors Warburg Pincus and The Vertical Group, along with local venture capital firm Split Rock Partners, bought a majority stake in Tornier, an orthopedic-device company based in Grenoble, France. Tornier’s headquarters are being relocated to the Twin Cities (Eden Prairie) because “there is no better area from which to draw medical-device industry talent,” Kohrs says. Atop that talent pool is Kohrs himself, who was CEO of Minnetonka-based American Medical Systems from 1999 to 2005. Before that, he held management positions with Spine-Tech, one of Minnesota’s most successful medical-device companies in the past decade.
Kohrs says Tornier will close 2007 with about $100 million in revenue and is “significantly profitable.” With that, the company is poised for new acquisitions, two of which could come in the first half of 2007.
