CAPITAL MARKETS

Park Dental Goes Public

Park Dental Partners just decided to do something no U.S. dental group has tried in years: file for an IPO. In an industry used to private equity buyouts, this 50-year-old Midwestern DSO is taking the road less traveled—straight to Nasdaq.

What happened: Minneapolis-based Park Dental Partners has filed paperwork to go public, applying to list on Nasdaq under the ticker “PARK.” The company’s S-1 registration, submitted September 3, outlines a proposed raise of roughly $20 million (all primary shares) with two mid-market investment banks handling the deal. In other words, this isn’t a splashy billion-dollar IPO, but a smaller offering aimed at fueling the next stage of growth.

Who is Park Dental? Park Dental Partners is a DSO with 85 practice locations across Minnesota and Wisconsin, over 200 dentists on its network, and more than 900 support staff ranging from hygienists to patient coordinators. With roots dating back to 1972, it’s a veteran in the DSO world, and was recently ranked among Minnesota’s largest private companies by revenue. 

Why it’s happening: Park Dental’s IPO bid is a notable strategic choice in a dental industry where most peers have opted to sell to private equity or larger consolidators. Choosing Wall Street over a private sale signals a few things about Park’s game plan:

• Preserving doctor ownership: Park Dental is doctor-owned and by going public, its dentist-partners can retain equity and control, rather than ceding a majority stake to a PE firm. An IPO lets Park raise expansion capital without handing the keys to outside investors, which can help preserve culture.
  

• Growth on its own terms: The estimated $20M raise (small by IPO standards) implies a measured growth strategy. Park Dental isn’t chasing a massive cash infusion; instead, it is raising just the capital it needs to invest in the business while using stock as currency for potential future acquisitions. The IPO route suggests management believes steady cash flows and scale can attract public investors, all while keeping leverage low.
  

• Market timing and confidence: Filing in 2025’s cautious IPO climate means Park Dental sees an opportunity (or necessity) now. With interest rates up and private deal valuations cooling, an IPO might fetch a better valuation or more flexibility than a PE deal.

Why it matters: For other DSOs, Park Dental’s public-market foray offers both inspiration and cautionary lessons. It’s essentially the first pure-play U.S. dental practice group to test IPO waters in decades. If it works, a successful Park Dental IPO would blaze a trail for others. 

Historically, DSOs have been sold in private transactions or rolled up by bigger fish. If public investors embrace Park Dental, it creates a benchmark valuation for practice networks and proves that a well-run DSO can tap public equity markets. That could embolden other large groups (and their investors) to consider the IPO route rather than the next PE flip.

Yes, but: An IPO also comes with strings. Quarterly earnings pressure, analyst coverage, and regulatory compliance will all ramp up, and Park Dental will trade the relative privacy of a closely held company for the fishbowl of public markets, which have been harsh environments for publicly traded dental groups in the past:

• In the 1990s, Orthodontic Centers of America went public and then flamed out spectacularly, collapsing into bankruptcy by 2006 amid legal troubles and allegations of aggressive accounting.
  

• American Dental Partners (a 1998 Nasdaq DSO IPO) had an up-and-down run: It grew to approximately $130M in revenue and a stock peak in 2007, but the 2008 recession pummeled its stock, and it eventually was taken private in 2012 at $19 per share.
  

• In Canada, Dentalcorp offers a more mixed case study. The Canadian giant raised nearly CA $950 million in its 2021 TSX IPO, funding an aggressive acquisition spree that allowed it to scale to more than 561 practices by the end of 2024, but heavy debt loads and rising interest rates weighed on margins and sent shares trading well below IPO levels.

Bottom line: In boardrooms of growing dental groups, Park’s move prompts a strategic question: Should we consider going public? For groups contemplating capital raises or liquidity events, an IPO is now at least on the menu. It won’t be right for many (especially smaller or regional groups lacking scale), but having even one example in the market can shift negotiating dynamics. Private equity suitors may have to compete a bit harder if practice owners see a viable IPO as an alternative. 

At minimum, Park Dental’s leap is forcing the industry to think outside the typical private equity box. For dental leaders, the takeaway is to keep an open mind (and perhaps an eye on Nasdaq), as the range of growth and exit options in dentistry might be expanding, one ticker symbol at a time.