Private Equity Firm That Stripped Money Out of CharterCARE Takes Major Position in Topgolf
GoLocalProv News Team
Private Equity Firm That Stripped Money Out of CharterCARE Takes Major Position in Topgolf
Topgolf owns and operates popular golfing venues in the United States and abroad, and opened its location in Cranston, Rhode Island in 2023.
Callaway Brands — the golf club company — announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to sell a 60% stake in its Topgolf and Toptracer business to Leonard Green & Partners, L.P. The deal values Topgolf at approximately $1.1 billion. In connection with this sale and its related financing transactions, Topgolf Callaway Brands expects to receive approximately $770 million in net proceeds.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTAbout the sale to Leonard Green, Callaway CEO Chip Brewer hyped the deal in a press release announcing the deal.
“Leonard Green is a leading private equity firm with a track record of success in investing in high-growth consumer companies and is an ideal partner for Topgolf in its next chapter,” said Brewer. “I am proud of the Topgolf team and all the hard work that has gone into driving the business forward over the last five years. Today’s announcement reflects the strength of the Topgolf business and its bright future, a future we continue to believe in and want to be part of. We look forward to partnering with Leonard Green to further accelerate Topgolf’s growth and financial success.”
Leonard Green's RI Track Record
CharterCARE hospitals, Roger Williams and Fatima, face potential closures as Leonard Green’s business partner and the owner of the hospitals — Prospect Medical Holdings — has petitioned a federal bankruptcy court to close the hospitals.
Leonard Green’s ownership of Prospect Medical, which once operated 16 hospitals and more than 150 other clinics and medical centers, has become a key example for critics of private equity.
A report issued by the U.S. Senate Budget Committee in January 2025 said Leonard Green took $424 million in dividends and preferred stock redemptions, as well as more than $13 million in fees from Los Angeles-based Prospect Medical Holding — the parent company of CharterCARE. These payments saddled Prospect with excessive debt it defaulted on, causing cutbacks and hospital closures, after Leonard Green sold the business in 2021, the report added.
Ultimately, Prospect declared bankruptcy.
A Wall Street Journal report in 2020 questioned the controversial debt-financed dividend payout structure being used by Prospect and Leonard Green.
The Wall Street Journal reported in 2020 that “Over the last decade, Prospect paid its shareholders, the biggest of which is Leonard Green, more than $500 million in dividends from these hospitals, while loading Prospect’s balance sheet with new debt, according to a debt prospectus and Moody’s.”
“After the company sought to buy two hospitals in Rhode Island in 2013, state officials requested that Prospect confirm it had no plans to pay further dividends to its shareholders after a $100 million dividend it had paid in 2012. Prospect responded that it didn’t, according to correspondence between the state and the company viewed by the Journal,” reported WSJ.
As GoLocal unveiled in 2017, Rhode Island officials reviewed the sale of the CharterCare hospitals to Prospect, and regulators allowed Prospect to make a one-time payment to the ill-fated St. Joseph pension fund and then orphan the fund, leading to its collapse. It was the biggest pension failure in Rhode Island history.
“The private-equity firm [Leonard Green] is looking to now sell Prospect to members of the hospital’s management, a deal that has so far failed to win approval from Rhode Island, pending a review of Prospect’s activities by the state. The review has been examining the dividends paid to Leonard Green and other financial information, according to a public disclosure,” reports the WSJ in 2020.
Ultimately, that deal went through with Attorney General Peter Neronha's approval. Neronha secured millions to support the hospitals. Today, less than $50 million remains. And, with Neronha's approval, Leonard Green got its hundreds of millions.
“Prospect Medical’s finances are solid and we remain committed to CharterCARE Health Partners and to healthcare in Rhode Island,” said the company in an email to GoLocal in December of 2020.