Private Equity Firms and Pearson Dominate Global Education Deals in 2011

admin — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 10:29:35 +0000

Private equity firms and Pearson dominate 2011’s global education deals says The Assignment Report’s Education Industry Deal Review for Q4 2011 published on 20 January 2012. Top of the 2011 deal list is Hellman & Friedman’s acquisition of SunGard Higher Education, the US-based software company, for $1,775m from SunGard Data Systems. Announced in August 2011, the transaction received regulatory approval in December 2011. This deal followed Providence Equity Partners acquisition of Blackboard, the Washington DC-based VLE technology company for $1,640m.

During 2011 Pearson spent over $1,100m acquiring education companies in the US, UK, China, India and Germany. Five of these acquisitions are included in 2011′s top ten education deals where the transaction value was disclosed. In December 2011, Pearson announced it was selling its 50% stake in FTSE International Limited to the London Stock Exchange Group plc for £450m in cash in part to fund further bolt-on acquisitions.

Deal activity in the UK education industry in 2011 was dominated by the £312m acquisition of Holidaybreak plc – the supplemental education and activity travel group – by the Mumbai-listed tour operator Cox & Kings. 2011 also saw further consolidation with the UK teacher supply market with Teaching Personnel’s acquisition of Protocol Education. The merger of Protocol Education with Teaching Personnel created the number one supply teacher agency in England with combined revenue of over £90m. And 2011 was also the year that deal activity in the UK for-profit Higher Education market began to hot up – expect more deals in this sector in 2012.

The Education Industry Deal Review is published by Meissa as a quarterly supplement to The Assignment Report. For a Free Trial visit www.theassignmentreport.com

Here are the principal deals in the UK education industry in 2011:

Announced Date	Target	Buyer	Category	Value	Target Description
July-11	Holidaybreak	Cox & Kings	Student Travel	£312m	Education and activity travel group.
March-11	Education Development International plc	Pearson	Qualifications and Assessment	£112.7m	AIM listed vocational qualifications company.
Oct-11	LearnDirect (Ufi Limited)	LDC	Vocational Education	£40m	E-learning provider of courses for adults in English, Maths, Computers and IT, Jobseeking and employability and Life Skills. LDC acquired the business from the Ufi Charitable Trust.
July-11	Continuum	Bloomsbury	Media	£20.1m	An international academic and professional publisher with a small trade list.
March-11	Talis Information	Capita	Technology	£18.5m	The library software and managed services division of Talis Group. An additional £2.5m to be paid depending on profit performance.
May-11	ITN Mark Education	CORE Projects & Technology	Support Services	£15.2m	Supply teacher business with a customer base of around 1,600 primary and secondary schools.
Jul-11	Resource Development International	Capella Education	Higher Education	£9.3m	PartnersUKuniversities to provide degree programmes including MBAs via distance learning.

Feb-11	HomeLearningCollege	Blenheim Chalcot Management	Distance Learning	UNDIS	Provides distance learning courses to around 65,000 adult students. Acquired from ECI Partners.
May-11	GreenwichSchoolof Management	Sovereign Capital	Higher Education	UNDIS	A private-sector provider of University-accredited under-graduate and post-graduate programmes in business, law and management.
Aug-11	Protocol Education	Graphite Capital	Support Services	UNDIS	Provides supply teachers and support staff to schools. Graphite is invested additional equity in Teaching Personnel to complete the transaction.
Sep-11	Zentek Solutions	Tribune Business Systems	Support Services	UNDIS	Bolton-based provider of education ICT services.
Oct-11	TQ Holdings	Pearson	Vocational Education	UNDIS	Provides vocational and technical education and training services to the defence, engineering, oil and gas and construction sectors.

Meissa » Zentek Solutions

Private Equity Firms and Pearson Dominate Global Education Deals in 2011