Dow Jones: LLR exits majority stake in VectorLearning to Providence Equity, but reinvests in minority stake

Tom Paine

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Philadelphia's LLR Partners exited from its majority stake in online education company VectorLearning.com Inc., selling it to PE giant Providence Equity Partners, Dow Jones' LBO Wire reported late last week (subscription required). No financial terms were disclosed.

Scott Perricelli / LLR website

But the firm is reinvesting a portion of its equity in a minority stake in the newly recapitalized company, Dow Jones says, citing LLR partner Scott Perricelli. LLR followed a similar strategy in 2013, when it sold a majority of its stake in Care2Learn, one of two original units of VectorLearning, to Relias Learning LLC. It rolled its remaining equity stake into Relias. In November of this year,  Bertelsmann SE agreed to acquire Relias for an amount Dow Jones reported was in the "hundreds of millions" of dollars.

VectorLearning currently operates RedVector and Target Solutions, which provides online training for firefighters and emergency medical services providers.

LLR also owns stakes in three other education companies: Orbis Education (training and education services in nursing), Brightside Academy (urban operator of early child-care education centers) and Avenues: The World School (a private school operator).

LLR first invested $24 million in VectorLearning in 2011 through its LLR Equity Partners III LP fund. VectorLearning will continue looking for new vertical opportunities in online professional training, Dow Jones quotes Perricelli as saying.

In addition to VectorLearning and Relias, LLR had three other exits in 2014, all from Philadelphia area companies. Quintiq was acquired by Dassault Systemes for around $336 million, Pet360 was acquired by PetSmart for $130 million plus a potential $30 million earnout, and King of Prussia-based Maxwell Systems was acquired by Oregon-based Viewpoint Construction Software (terms not disclosed).

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