Houlihan Lokey Advises FutureLearn

Houlihan Lokey is pleased to announce that it advised FutureLearn, a portfolio company of The Open University and Seek Investments, on its sale to Global University Systems. The transaction closed on 30 November 2022. The transaction value is undisclosed.

Headquartered in London, FutureLearn is the UK's leading and one of the world's largest lifelong online learning platforms. The company offers access to fully digital courses from more than 250 of the world's top universities, enterprises, and government partners globally. FutureLearn attracts close to 30 million unique annual visitors and has served a total of 19 million learners since its launch in 2012, providing more than 1,700 courses across a range of subjects, from Health & Medicine, and Business to Technology and Teaching, with short online courses, microcredentials, as well as undergraduate and postgraduate degrees.

Global University Systems, one of the largest higher education platforms with a portfolio of 28 education institutions located in the UK, the Netherlands, Ireland, Israel, Germany, Canada, India, and Singapore, provides courses to more than 100,000 students. Global University Systems offers a portfolio of degree courses and qualifications covering a wide range of skills and professional occupations, with key focus areas including Business, Law, Engineering, Technology, Healthcare, Media, and Design. The group provides all of its portfolio institutions with a powerful network of facilities, recruitment channels, and sector expertise.

This transaction builds on Houlihan Lokey’s market-leading position in edtech and education, where the firm's deal team has advised Educaedu on its sale to Miura Partners; ECI Partners on its sale of CPOMS to Raptor Technologies and ECI’s acquisition of CIPHR; Primary Capital Partners on its initial acquisition of ICS Learn and subsequent sale to Skill & You; QuestionMark on its sale to Learnosity; Kallidus on its sale to Apse Capital; itslearning on its sale to Sanoma Group; Skillsoft on its Chapter 11 restructuring and subsequent sale to Churchill Capital Corp. II; General Atlantic on its investment in OpenClassrooms; TDR Capital on its acquisition of BPP and BPP’s subsequent acquisitions of Estio Training and Firebrand Training; Inflexion on its acquisitions of Times Higher Education and Inside Higher Ed; Circus Street on its sale to QA; Colibri on its acquisition of Becker Professional Education and OnCourse Learning from Adtalem Global Education; BIMM Institute on its sale to ICG and Cambridge University on its acquisition of the University of Durham’s Centre for Evaluation and Monitoring.