Educate LBO: Done

I had speculated in For Profit Education – More LBOs Coming that Educate (EEEE) and Apollo (APOL) were next up, at the heels of Laureate’s (LAUR) acquisition by KKR and associates. I had missed the announcement that Educate’s management has already arranged such a deal to take the owners of Sylvan tutoring services private. Tutoring

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For Profit Education: More LBOs Coming

Marketwatch reports: The board of Laureate Education (LAUR), a for-profit provider of higher education, has agreed to a $3.1 billion buyout led by founder and Chief Executive Douglas L. Becker and backed by a private equity consortium including Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co., Citigroup Private Equity and hedge fund S.A.C. Capital Management LLC. Under the

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Private Equity Needs Exit

WSJ reports that UGS, owned by Siemens, Bain Capital and Silverlake, is about to be sold to Siemens, for $3.5 Billion. The company was purchased 3 years back for $2 Billion. Deals have become much larger since. The WSJ articles hints at an issue the industry is facing: Exit. While there may be players who

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Sex And The Single Zillionaire

Venture Capital, the way it was practised by Tom Perkins, is dead. Called by whatever different name, the company-building game today is more Private Equity than true venture capital.

Tech Buy-Out: Skill gap analysis

Rumbles can be heard on both sides of the business today, as both the VCs and the Buy-out guys are waking up to the potential of tech Buy-outs. The larger venture funds are trying to figure out LBO methods, while the Buy-out guys are assessing how to bring strategic leverage into their portfolios.

Mentor Graphics: Target for SilverLake?

Mentor Graphics is No. 3 in the Electronics Design Automation (EDA) market, after Cadence and Synopsys. The EDA market itself is not that large, roughly $4 Billion, declining rapidly to $3.5 Bilion due to its tough price-wars. Such a market cannot support 3 major players, and Mentor ought to be a classic acquisition target for

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