LONDON – December 17, 2018 – We are delighted to announce the sale of Tes Global Group Limited (“Tes Global”) from TPG to Providence Equity Partners L.L.C. (“Providence”).
The management and staff of Tes Global are pleased to welcome Providence as owners. The Executive team is looking forward to working together with Providence to build the business and help achieve its long-term success.
Rob Grimshaw, CEO of Tes Global said: “We are delighted to be joining Providence at this exciting time in Tes Global’s journey. Our mission is to support and connect teachers and schools worldwide, helping them improve children’s lives through education. Over the next few years and backed by the strength of Providence’s expertise in the education sector, we look forward to taking that vision further. In particular, we aim to build on our already strong credentials as a software services provider, bringing smart digital solutions to schools both in the UK and worldwide. On behalf of everyone at Tes, I’d also like to thank TPG for their guidance as owners of the business in recent years and their unwavering support for our successful strategic transformation.”
Dany Rammal, Managing Director at Providence, said: “By partnering with Tes Global, we can combine their leading education platform with our expertise developing innovative education businesses around the world to build an even stronger operator in this exciting sector. Providence has over 150,000 students across our existing portfolio of education-focused groups that includes NACE Schools, Galileo Global Education and Study Group International, which make us particularly well-positioned to help Rob and his team propel Tes Global’s world-leading community of teachers and school leaders towards its next phase of growth.”
Antonio Capo, Partner at TPG Capital, said: “Since investing in Tes Global in 2013, we have worked closely with management to transform Tes from a predominantly print-based teacher classified business into a global digital education company. A number of strategic acquisitions have enabled Tes to expand into teacher training and education technology, whilst heavy investment in systems and digital capabilities have resulted in disruptive product innovations for schools and teachers the world over. We are proud of what the company has achieved under our ownership, and wish Rob, his team and their new sponsor Providence continued success.”
Tes Global was advised by Jefferies International Limited, Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP, and Travers Smith LLP and Providence was advised by Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP and Arma Partners.
In preparation for this transaction, the ‘THE WUR’ (Times Higher Education World University Rankings) business was separated from Tes Global and will remain under the ownership of TPG pending a sale in the New Year. Upon closing of this transaction, Tes Global and ‘THE WUR’ will be discrete businesses with different owners.
EDITORS NOTES
Overview of Tes Global Ltd:
We believe in the power of great teaching. Tes supports and connects teachers and schools worldwide, helping them improve children’s lives through education.
Building on our heritage of writing news for teachers for over a century, Tes is at the heart of the global teaching profession. We host a digital community of 11.6m educators, who create and share-teaching resources downloaded up to a million times a day. Through sophisticated digital tools and services, we help schools attract candidates to fill vacancies, as well as qualify and train their own teachers.
Tes at a glance:
- 11.6m registered users on tes.com, growing at 45K per week
- 20% growth year on year on tes.com, including 2.1m average weekly unique users
- 1m classroom resources downloaded on peak days and 230m last year (over 1 billion downloads since Tes launched a resource sharing platform)
- 500K teachers clicked to apply for jobs in the past 12 months
- 5th largest ITT (initial teacher training) organisation in the UK
- 1st largest library of Continuous Professional Development content in the English-speaking world
About Providence Equity Partners
Providence is a premier global asset management firm with approximately $30 billion in assets under management across complementary private equity businesses. Providence pioneered a sector-focused approach to private equity investing with the vision that a dedicated team of industry experts could build exceptional companies of enduring value. Since the firm’s inception in 1989, Providence has invested in more than 180 companies and has become a leading equity investment firm focused on the media, communications, education and information industries. Providence is headquartered in Providence, RI, and also has offices in New York and London. For more information, please visit www.provequity.com.
