Global Education IPO's and Takeovers Update

Innovation requires capital and compared with other sectors, education is critically undercapitalized. Governments are struggling to fund education at historic levels and education is not attracting enough private capital to fund the innovation that’s needed. Public-Private Partnerships and private capital will be required for education to deliver on its social and economic objectives.

While many of the 250 companies operate across several education categories, we have classified into a primary sector where they generate most of their value. One-third focus on K12 learning with a market cap of $58B, with a few giants dominating and many smaller companies. Post Secondary is more evenly spread with 70 companies and a market cap of $46B.

Publishing is represented by a small number of companies (15) with a high combined market cap of $34B, illustrating the consolidated mature state of that part of the sector. 35 Corporate education listed companies are valued at $26B, while 24 listed education companies in the ‘digital’ category have a total market cap of $15B. Of the 24 in the digital group, the top 10 by market cap include four learning management systems, two language learning and one each of education resources (digital content), OPM, Assessment and Education Management System.