Houlihan Lokey Advises Circus Street

Houlihan Lokey is pleased to announce that Circus Street has been acquired by QA, a portfolio company of CVC. The transaction closed on July 1, 2021.

Founded in 2009 by brothers Richard and Jonny Townsend, Circus Street is an award-winning online training solution that allows global businesses to build and develop digital capabilities across their organisations at scale, serving over 500,000 people in more than 150 countries. Circus Street works with clients such as Sanofi, Nike, Nestle, Pfizer, P&G, and Coca-Cola across their marketing and commercial teams on a broad range of digital skills, from eCommerce, social media, and digital marketing to big data and analytics, with the aim of increasing their digital knowledge and confidence.

QA is the UK market leader in tech training and talent services, upskilling more than 200,000 people annually. QA serves 85% of the FTSE 250 and many parts of government and the public sector, and it is Microsoft’s No. 2 learning partner globally. QA delivers this through an unrivalled range of courses, bootcamps, apprenticeships, and degree apprenticeships—each blending the best of live and self-paced digital training. QA also provides over 150 undergraduate and masters programmes in conjunction with its university partners.

Houlihan Lokey served as the exclusive financial advisor to Circus Street on its sale to QA.

This transaction builds on Houlihan Lokey’s market-leading position in the education and training sector in general and the online training market in particular, where the Houlihan Lokey deal team has advised Oakley Capital on the acquisition of Seagull; Alchemy on its sale to Intertek, General Atlantic on its investment in OpenClassrooms, Kallidus on its sale to Apse Capital; Atlas Knowledge on its sale to Mintra Group, Primary Capital on the acquisition of ICS Learn, and Eukleia on its sale to Learning Technologies Group.

Other recent Houlihan Lokey transactions in the education, training, and EdTech sector include acting for QuestionMark on its sale to Learnosity; ECI Partners on the acquisition of CIPHR; TDR Capital on its acquisition of BPP; BIMM Institute on its sale to ICG; itslearning on its sale to Sanoma Group; Skillsoft on its Chapter 11 restructuring and subsequent sale to Churchill Capital Corp II; Cambridge University on its acquisition of the University of Durham’s Centre for Evaluation and Monitoring; Inflexion on its acquisitions of Times Higher Education and Calco; and THI Investments on its acquisition of Corndel.