e-Literate

Present is Prologue

Tag: Apollo Education Group

  • The Massive Decline In Larger Education Company Market Caps

    After our coverage of Blackboard’s CEO change last week, we were both interviewed by the Washington Business Journal, with the following lede:

    Analysts and sources I spoke with Monday, both on and off the record, said the decision to bring on Bill Ballhaus as CEO was a combination of Bhatt failing to make progress building the company’s business and lacking the experience needed to successfully run a company of that scale. And that means at least several years before Providence Equity Partners, which owns a majority of the company after paying $1.64 billion for it in July 2011, begins actively marketing the company for sale, according to industry experts.

    Earlier this week I wrote about Apollo Education Group, parent of the University of Phoenix, putting itself up for sale due to its weakening financial position. I also noted that I doubt that McGraw-Hill Education is going to be able to go public in the near-term. Part of the reason for this latter observation is the dramatic fall of Pearson in the stock market, triggered by its warnings that it would miss earnings estimates. In Audrey’s excellent year-end post on the business of ed tech, she noted:

    Private equity firms sure love buying ed-tech companies. Perhaps because the stock market’s sorta “meh” about them.

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  • Parent Company of University of Phoenix Could Be Sold to Owner of McGraw-Hill Education

    Apollo Education Group, parent company of the University of Phoenix as well as Apollo Global, is in “advanced talks” to be purchased by Apollo Global Management, owner of McGraw-Hill Education and of Cengage debt. Got that?

    To clarify, the Apollo Education Group is the parent company of the University of Phoenix, and they have a subsidiary called Apollo Global, which is a joint venture with the Carlyle Group, another private equity firm. While the confusion is understandable, Apollo Global Management previously shared nothing in common with the Apollo Education Group other than their admiration for the choir-directing sun-god.

    With that in mind, here is the news from the Wall Street Journal today:

    A deal between Phoenix-based Apollo Education and Apollo Global Management, a New York private-equity firm, could be worth about $1 billion, some of the people said, with one of them adding an agreement could be reached in the next few weeks. Apollo Education had been in discussions with a number of private-equity firms since late last year, but Apollo Global Management is the only one still in the running now, this person said.

    It is possible, as always, in such situations that there will be no deal, and another buyout firm could re-emerge.

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