Education M&A deal value and volume is on the rise in 2014, according to a newly released Education Industry M&A trend report for half year 2014 by Berkery Noyes. Total transaction volume improved nine percent on a half year basis. Aggregate value increased 45 percent, from $4.08 billion to $5.90 billion. There were two transactions in the Education market that reached the $1 billion threshold during first half 2014, both of which were backed by private equity firms. This consisted of Charterhouse Capital Partners’ $2.3 billion acquisition of SkillSoft, which provides cloud-based learning solutions for enterprises and governments; and Hellman & Friedman’s $1.1 billion acquisition of Renaissance Learning, a K-12 assessment and analytics company. Regarding the Higher-Ed Media and Tech segment, deal volume remained nearly constant. Blackboard was a high profile acquirer in the space with the acquisition of MyEdu, which enables college students to plan their academic course schedules in a way that helps meet their professional career goals. “There is a steady increase in M&A activity in the education and training market as the strategic players in the space seek to adapt to a shift in learning modality and financial sponsors become increasingly interested in the opportunity presented by a sector in transition,” says Peter Yoon, Managing Director at Berkery Noyes. “In many instances, we are seeing a shift from live, in-person instruction to more of a software-as-a-service (SaaS) model that emphasizes online or blended learning.” Read it here.
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