Workers at Medline Industries assemble Personal Protection Equipment (PPE) kits to be shipped out to various health facilities at their warehouse in Mundelein, Illinois, U.S., on Monday, Oct. 20, 2014. The personal protection kits, which typically include a hooded body suit, face shield, boot covers, mask, gloves, Epi-clenz hand sanitizer and a biohazard bag, can be used for healthcare professionals that are treating patients with the Ebola virus. Photographer: Tim Boyle/Bloomberg
© 2014 Bloomberg Finance LP
Medline, one of the world’s biggest makers of personal protective equipment, is considering filing for an initial public offering as early as this fall, according to several reports.
Medline, which generates more than $23 billion in annual sales, has in the past boasted of more than a half century of double-digit percentage sales growth under the billionaire Mills family as well as its most recent private equity owners. Bloomberg News was the first to report the potential IPO, which could raise about $5 billion.
In 2021, Medline attracted a major partner in the form of private equity firms led by Blackstone, Carlyle and Hellman & Friedman, which bought a $30 billion majority stake in the family-owned medical product maker. The Mills family retained a minority take stake estimated at 25 percent.
Medline grew rapidly during the Covid-19 pandemic, making personal protective equipment. Medline revenue eclipsed $21 billion in sales in 2021, adding more than 230 new healthcare provider and health system accounts worth nearly $2 billion in 2021 sales as Covid-19 raged around the world, the company said at the time.
Based in the northern Chicago suburb of Northfield, Medline has had six decades of consecutive annual sales growth and 43,000 employees worldwide and now has more than $23 billion in annual sales. Medline makes everything from masks, surgical gowns and drapes to sanitizing products and biohazard bags.
In 2023, Medline appointed Jim Boyle as chief executive officer and Jim Pigott as president and chief operating officer in what the company called a five-year succession process.
Boyle and Pigott replaced more than 26 years of Mills family leadership that included Charlie Mills (CEO), Andy Mills (President) and Jim Abrams (COO) who retired from their roles. Those three continue to serve the “company on its Board of Directors, with Charlie Mills leading as Chairman of the Board and Andy Mills and Jim Abrams as Vice Chairmen,” Medline said at the time.
With roots going back to 1910, Medline was founded in 1966 by brothers James and Jon Mills, who took it public in 1972, then took it private again five years later. Charlie Mills, James’ son, became Medline’s CEO in 1997. At the onset of the pandemic in 2020, Medline ramped up production of such items as bleach products, face masks, surgical gowns, disinfecting wipes and toilet paper. Andy Mills, told Forbes at the time, “the volume [of calls seeking supplies] is off the charts… I literally can’t go an hour without getting some kind of request in my mailbox.”