Texas Pacific Group, a US private equity firm, has hired Leonard Schaeffer, former chief executive of US health benefits company WellPoint, and three of his ex-colleagues as senior advisers on healthcare acquisitions.

Schaeffer has been a leading figure in the US healthcare sector for 30 years. He ran the Medicare and Medicaid health benefit programmes during the administration of President Carter, and later became chief executive of WellPoint, which he built into the largest managed health care company in the US. He resigned in 2005 following the sale of WellPoint to healthcare firm Anthem Inc.