Firm Overview and Healthcare Focus

FORT MYERS, FLORIDA — Mertz Taggart is a healthcare mergers and acquisitions advisory firm whose principals have completed over 160 healthcare transactions since 2006. The firm was formally established in 2014 and is headquartered in Fort Myers, Florida. It specializes exclusively in healthcare services with an emphasis on home health, home care, hospice, and behavioral health—the latter category encompassing addiction treatment, mental health, autism services, and intellectual and developmental disabilities.

The firm was co-founded by Cory Mertz, M&AMI, and Kevin Taggart, CM&AP, who serve as Managing Partners. Mertz focuses primarily on the home-based care vertical, while Taggart leads the behavioral health practice. The firm’s competitive positioning rests on a claim that distinguishes it from purely financial advisory shops: its principals have direct experience owning and operating a healthcare company, which the firm argues gives it a practitioner’s understanding of the operational realities that drive value in healthcare M&A.

The team has grown to approximately 17 professionals, according to PitchBook data. In addition to the Managing Partners, the firm includes a Director of M&A Analytics (Anke Stugk, Ph.D.), M&A associates covering both the behavioral health and home-based care verticals, and an inside business development team. PitchBook records show the firm has been involved in 135 total deals, including both sell-side advisory and buy-side advisory engagements, though the firm’s primary emphasis is on sell-side representation.

In a market where ABA practice owners often struggle to identify advisors with sector-specific expertise, Mertz Taggart has built its reputation by being the firm that publishes the data everyone else cites.

The Quarterly Behavioral Health M&A Reports

Mertz Taggart’s signature contribution to the ABA deal market is its quarterly Behavioral Health M&A Report. Published on the firm’s website and distributed through industry channels, the report tracks transaction volumes by subsector—addiction treatment, mental health, autism and I/DD—and provides Kevin Taggart’s commentary on the factors driving deal activity in each quarter. The reports have been published consistently since at least 2018, creating a multi-year dataset that allows the firm and its readers to identify trends, compare quarter-over-quarter activity, and benchmark the relative health of different behavioral health subsectors.

The reports carry particular weight in the ABA segment. In Q4 2024, Taggart noted that the autism and I/DD subsector saw 30 total deals for the year after a period of strain caused by major bankruptcies, large strategic ABA companies struggling, and wage inflation for registered behavior technicians. His assessment that the dust had begun to settle and buyers were showing renewed interest was widely cited as a signal that the ABA deal market was entering a recovery phase.

The reports also function as a marketing instrument for the firm’s advisory practice. Each quarterly edition lists transactions in which Mertz Taggart served as exclusive sell-side advisor, embedding the firm’s deal track record within the analytical content that industry participants rely on. Recent transactions highlighted in the reports include sell-side advisory for First Steps Recovery (acquired by Avesi Partners), Cielo House (sold to Refresh Mental Health), Tampa Neuropsychiatry (acquired by Beacon Behavioral Partners), Turning Point of Tampa (invested in by The Apen Group), Deep Eddy Psychotherapy Management (acquisition of Dallas Counseling and Treatment Center), Seabrook (sold to Summit BHC), and Las Vegas Recovery Centers (sold to Landmark Recovery).

Kevin Taggart as the Industry’s Go-To Source

Kevin Taggart’s visibility in trade media coverage of behavioral health M&A is unmatched among advisory professionals covering the ABA space. He is quoted in virtually every Behavioral Health Business article covering quarterly deal activity, and his commentary provides the framing that journalists and industry participants use to interpret transaction volumes, valuation trends, and the behavior of private equity buyers.

His analysis consistently addresses the dynamics that ABA practice owners and PE sponsors care most about: the distinction between seller-driven and buyer-driven markets, the impact of interest rates on lower middle market deal volume, the role of dry powder in sustaining PE appetite for behavioral health, and the regulatory scrutiny that accompanies private equity involvement in healthcare. In Q1 2024, he noted that U.S.-based private equity firms were sitting on nearly $1 trillion in undeployed capital, and that healthcare services—particularly behavioral health—remained highly attractive targets. In Q2 2024, he observed that the decline in deal volume was driven specifically by a drop in PE-backed portfolio company acquisitions, not by a lack of buyer interest.

In July 2025, Taggart was quoted in Behavioral Health Business on the trend of deals flying under the radar, noting that some ABA transactions were not being publicly announced due to the market dynamics of smaller communities where deal announcements could impact employee retention and brand reputation. His observation that behavioral health dealmaking was up 35 percent in Q1 2025 provided a data point that was widely cited as evidence of the market’s recovery from the 2023–2024 slowdown.

Taggart’s quarterly commentary has become the metronome of the ABA deal market: when he says deal flow is recovering, practice owners start taking meetings, and when he flags buyer caution, sellers recalibrate their timelines.

Relevance to the ABA Ecosystem

For ABA practice owners evaluating whether and when to sell, Mertz Taggart’s quarterly reports are often the first analytical resource they encounter. The reports provide the market context that informs timing decisions, valuation expectations, and the selection of an advisory firm. The firm’s own deal flow benefits directly from this dynamic: by publishing the data that defines the market conversation, Mertz Taggart ensures that any ABA owner thinking about a sale has already encountered the firm’s name before they begin the advisor selection process.

For PE sponsors and strategic acquirers, Mertz Taggart’s reports provide a competitive intelligence function—tracking which deals were announced, which subsectors are heating up or cooling down, and what valuation environment sellers can expect. The firm’s observation in Q4 2024 that buyers who had been sitting on the sidelines were reaching out before the new year, combined with the expectation that a deregulatory environment under the current administration would be positive for deal-making, set the tone for the 2025 M&A cycle.

AT A GLANCE

SOURCES & REFERENCES