Hobsons, which offers a suite of software for college and career planning, admissions and enrollment, and student success and advising, will be broken up and sold in a pair of transactions totaling approximately $410 million.
The company’s owner, the Daily Mail and General Trust (DMGT, which is also the publisher of the British newspaper Daily Mail), announced it has reached an agreement to sell Naviance and Intersect to PowerSchool for $320 million. The two products complement one another. Naviance is used by students to learn about their life and career interests, and provides recommendations for what educational options can best support them. Some of that data is shared with Intersect, which is sold to colleges and universities to support their recruitment and enrollment efforts.
These acquisitions come at a time when PowerSchool and EAB are preparing for even bigger deals. Both companies are currently owned by private equity firm Vista Equity Partners. (Onex Corp. is also a major shareholder in PowerSchool).
Vista acquired PowerSchool for $350 million in 2015, and earlier this month filed confidentially for an IPO that could value the company at over $6 billion. Vista purchased EAB in 2017 for $1.55 billion, and there are rumblings that the firm is considering putting the company up for sale.
Source: EdSurge
By Tony Wan
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