Houlihan Lokey Advises ICS Learn

Houlihan Lokey is pleased to announce that ICS Learn, a portfolio company of Primary Capital Partners, has been sold to Skill & You, a portfolio company of IK Investment Partners. The transaction closed on 18 March 2022. The transaction value is undisclosed.

Headquartered in Glasgow, UK, and founded in 1890, ICS Learn is an award-winning provider of online professional training, accredited by industry-leading awarding bodies in sectors such as human resources, accounting, and leadership and management, serving over 25,000 students annually across more than 100 countries. ICS Learn’s digital courses also cover UK academic qualifications such as GCSE, iGCSE, and A-Levels. Its professional qualifications are delivered in close partnership with some of the most prestigious awarding bodies, including CIPD, AAT, AQA, CIM, CMI, CIPS, and Pearson Edexcel whilst the business employs a highly scalable, digital-only model, using best-in-class technology to deliver its training across B2B and B2C markets.

Skill & You is a leader in online vocational learning in France and Spain, providing courses to over 120,000 students. Skill & You offers a portfolio of 220 courses covering a wide range of skills and occupations, including healthcare, childcare, animal health, IT and digital, accounting, administration, and public service, amongst others. A large majority of these courses prepare learners for an internationally recognised diploma qualification.

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 Corporate Visions on its sale to The Riverside Co.; Circus Street on its sale to QA; Colibri on its acquisitions of Becker Professional Education and OnCourse Learning from Adtalem Global Education; Interactive Services on its sale to LRN Corporation; Oakley Capital on its acquisition of Seagull; Alchemy on its sale to Intertek; General Atlantic on its investment in OpenClassrooms; Kallidus on its sale to Apse Capital; Primary Capital Partners on its initial acquisition of ICS Learn; and Eukleia on its sale to Learning Technologies Group.

Other recent Houlihan Lokey transactions in the education and training and EdTech sectors include acting for Educaedu on its sale to Miura Partners; Inflexion on its acquisitions of Calco, Times Higher Education, and Inside Higher Ed; TDR Capital on its acquisition of BPP, and BPP’s subsequent acquisition of Estio Training; ECI Partners on its sale of CPOMS to Raptor Technologies and its acquisition of CIPHR; QuestionMark on its sale to Learnosity; 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; and THI Investments on its acquisition of Corndel.