Shore Capital Partners announced formation of EyeSouth Partners, completes affiliation with Georgia Eye Partners

March 14, 2017 – Shore Capital Partners (“Shore Capital” or “Shore”) is pleased to announce that it has formed EyeSouth Partners, LLC and completed a strategic partnership with Georgia Eye Partners (“Georgia Eye” or the “Company”). Founded in 1999 by Dr. Eugene Gabianelli, Georgia Eye is a leading eye care practice with four locations in the Atlanta, Georgia area. The Company offers medical and surgical specialty eye care services, including treatment for cataracts, corneal disease, refractive surgery, glaucoma, and oculoplastics through OPAL Aesthetics.

Shore Capital is proud to partner with Georgia Eye’s three partner physicians, Dr. Eugene Gabianelli (“Gino”), Dr. Andrew Feinberg (“Andrew”), and Dr. Parul Khator (“Parul”), who have established a reputation for high quality medical and surgical specialty eye care and lead a team of eight ophthalmologists and five optometrists. Gino, Andrew, Parul, and the Georgia Eye team have demonstrated impressive growth through the addition of new service lines, recruiting talented physicians and specialists, and new center openings and practice affiliations.

“We are tremendously proud of what our team has built over the past 17 years and appreciative of the trust our patients and referral partners place in us. We believe Shore Capital is the ideal partner to help facilitate our next phase of transformational growth and shares our commitment to leading clinical quality, operational excellence, a great workplace culture for our team members, and increased patient access,” said Dr. Gabianelli, founding physician, who will continue to lead the Company’s clinical team as Chief Medical Officer.

“I’ve been impressed by Shore’s energy, support of strategic growth initiatives, and proven expertise in the multi-site healthcare services space,” said Dr. Feinberg. “The partnership provides us with access to capital, administrative resources, operating expertise and strategic guidance while maintaining absolute focus on clinical quality as we seek to execute on our vision of building a leading practice in the Southeast,” said Dr. Khator.

“We could not be more excited to partner with Gino, Andrew, Parul and their team and look forward to creating a leading eye care provider in the Southeast, while providing the highest level of support to our practices and clinicians,” said Justin Ishbia, Managing Partner at Shore Capital and Chairman of EyeSouth Partners. “We are confident the industry trends will continue to support expansion thereby enhancing patient access and creating additional opportunities for our team members. Georgia Eye Partners provides an excellent foundation to build a best-in-class organization.”

Shore plans to invest in infrastructure to further standardize operations and centralize the finance, accounting, human resources, and IT functions to allow the clinicians to focus on providing high quality eye care services. Shore will be adding additional executive team members around current Chief Executive Officer Scott Bullock, who joined the Company in 2010 and has overseen a period of more than three times revenue growth.

The Company will pursue affiliations with independent eye care practices in order to build a group of clinicians that maintains a patient-first culture with a clear focus on clinical care.

EyeSouth Partners represents the eighth platform investment out of Shore Capital Partners Fund I, L.P., a $112.5 million investment vehicle raised in May 2014.