Houlihan Lokey Advises Times Higher Education

Houlihan Lokey is pleased to announce that Times Higher Education (THE), a portfolio company of Inflexion Private Equity (Inflexion), has acquired Inside Higher Ed (IHE), a portfolio company of Quad Partners. The transaction signed and closed on 7 January 2022.

Founded in 2004, IHE is an online media site reaching an annual audience of 25 million, consisting primarily of higher education professionals in the US, with independent news and analysis, industry insights, jobs board, and other tools and services focused on the higher education community.

THE is the world’s leading provider of higher education data and insights. Celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2021, THE provides news, insights, and thought leadership and works with thousands of universities globally, collecting data from more than 3,500 institutions and working with 800 clients across its data, consultancy, and hiring services. It is also known for its events, including the flagship THE World Summit Series, which engaged over 45,000 people globally in 2021.

Following Inflexion’s buyout of THE in February 2019, the acquisition of IHE brings together two of the leading brands in global higher education, with combined audiences exceeding 50 million unique users per year, encompassing university leadership, faculty, professional staff, and students, as well as policymakers and others.

Houlihan Lokey served as the exclusive financial advisor to THE and Inflexion. The transaction builds on Houlihan Lokey’s market-leading position in the education and training sector. Other recent transactions in the sector include advising Inflexion on its acquisitions of Times Higher Education and Calco; EducationDynamics on its sale to Renovus Capital; Questionmark on its sale to Learnosity; Oakley Capital on its acquisition of Seagull; Kallidus on its sale to Apse Capital; BIMM on its sale to ICG; TDR on its acquisitions of BPP and Estio Training; Circus Street on its sale to QA; 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 Durham University’s Centre for Evaluation and Monitoring; Educations Media Group on its sale to Verdane; and Source4Teachers on its sale to Nautic Partners.