Medline’s founding family (from left to right): Jim Abrams, Charlie Mills and Andy Mills.<\/p>\n
Jeff Sciortino for ForbesThe Mills family cashed out a majority stake in the family\u2019s medical supplies firm to private equity in 2021. But the coming $50 billion IPO shows that even what they continue to hold is worth a fortune. Combined, Forbes estimates they\u2019re worth $20 billion.<\/p>\n
Medical-supplies giant Medline\u2019s IPO<\/strong> is set to be this winter\u2019s blockbuster\u2013worth up to $55 billion. Documents for it also reveal for the first time the remaining stake of the Mills family, who founded the company in 1910 and ran it for generations. In 2021, the family sold a majority stake in the private company to private equity for $30 billion.<\/p>\n A new securities filing<\/a> shows that the Mills family\u2019s stake is worth $6 billion to $7 billion, by Forbes estimates based on the disclosed shareholdings of Mozart HoldCo and an expected share price of $26-to-$30 per share.<\/p>\n Combined with an estimated pretax stake of $22 billion from the earlier stake sale, <\/a>that would give the Mills family\u2013including Charlie Mills, the company\u2019s former CEO; Andy Mills, his cousin and former president; and Jim Abrams, Andy\u2019s brother-in-law and the former chief operating officer\u2013a combined net worth of $20 billion by Forbes estimates. That makes them worth 18 times the $1.1 billion that Forbes calculated they were worth in 2014. <\/a>The family set up a family office called Council Ring Capital<\/a> following the 2021 sale, and the trio began stepping back from operations in 2023. <\/p>\n Medline did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.<\/p>\n Medline\u2019s roots go back to 1910 when A.L. Mills\u2013the great-grandfather of Charlie Mills\u2013moved from small town Arkansas to Illinois. He sold handmade butcher\u2019s aprons to workers in the city\u2019s vast meatpacking district. After a nun who worked as a seamstress at a local hospital asked Mills if he could make and sell them hospital garments, the medical business was born. Over the subsequent decades, the company invented the first surgeon\u2019s gown with 360-degree coverage, were among the first to commercialize the blue and green fabrics worn in the operating room to cut down on the lights\u2019 glare, and were first to introduce the now ubiquitous pink-and-blue striped blankets for newborns.<\/p>\n Though Medline\u2019s supplies\u2013everything from baby blankets to bandages\u2013are everywhere, the Mills family was largely unknown until Forbes profiled them in 2020<\/a> in the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic. At the time, its distribution of medical supplies to nursing homes, pharmacies and 45% of hospital systems nationwide was a critical part of the country\u2019s coronavirus response.<\/p>\n Then, in June 2021, the family\u2013which had till then owned 100% of the company\u2013sold a majority stake to a consortium of private-equity firms that included Blackstone Group, Carlyle Group and Hellman & Friedman, who beat out other blue-chip bidders. In October 2023, current CEO Jim Boyle took on that role, the first non-family member to hold it.<\/p>\n Private-equity ownership has been good for Medline. The company\u2019s sales reached $25.5 billion in 2024, up 83% from $13.9 billion five years earlier. Meanwhile profits rebounded to $1.2 billion last year, compared with a small loss two years earlier.<\/p>\n MORE FROM FORBES<\/strong><\/p>\n ForbesThis Robotic Surgery Legend Is Pouring $100 Million Into Next-Gen Medical StartupsBy Amy Feldman<\/a>ForbesThis Haiti-Born Doctor Built A $6 Billion Business Developing Drugs For Depression And Alzheimer\u2019sBy Amy Feldman<\/a>ForbesHow A Tiny Polish Startup Became The Multi-Billion-Dollar Voice Of AIBy Iain Martin<\/a>ForbesHow Donald Trump Jr\u2019s Fortune Jumped Six-Fold In A YearBy Kyle Khan-Mullins<\/a>ForbesCompanies Cut Prices For Blockbuster Weight-Loss DrugsBy Amy Feldman<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Medline’s founding family (from left to right): Jim Abrams, Charlie Mills and Andy Mills. Jeff Sciortino for ForbesThe…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":224164,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[275],"tags":[120587,120585,120584,37072,120582,120583,18,135,475,474,19,17,94183,120580,120586,120581],"class_list":{"0":"post-224163","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-50-billion-ipo","9":"tag-mdln","10":"tag-andy-mills","11":"tag-billionaires","12":"tag-blockbuster-ipo","13":"tag-charlie-mills","14":"tag-eire","15":"tag-health","16":"tag-health-care","17":"tag-healthcare","18":"tag-ie","19":"tag-ireland","20":"tag-medical-supplies","21":"tag-medline","22":"tag-medline-ipo","23":"tag-mills-family"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115691135018550652","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224163","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=224163"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224163\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/224164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=224163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=224163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=224163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}