Oakley Capital transfers IU Group to continuation fund

The new vehicle is backed by investors including TPG GP Solutions, HarbourVest Partners, Goldman Sachs Asset Management, Glendower Capital and Pantheon, according to a press release.

The sponsors will be acquiring the business alongside Oakley Capital Fund V from Oakley Capital Fund III, which sold the 79% stake that it acquired in the business in 2017, it said. The GP's third flagship fund held a final close on EUR 800m in September 2017, according to Unquote Data.

OCI, the listed investment vehicle that invests in the funds managed by Oakley Capital, will have GBP 240m in proceeds and is set to realise a gross return of 85% IRR on its exit subject to completion, according to a London Stock Exchange statement. As part of the transaction, OCI's indirect contribution to IU via Oakley Capital Fund V will be around GBP 67m, it said.

Following a period of strong growth in 2020, IU Group (formerly known as Career Partner Group) attracted interest from private equity firms, sister publication Mergermarket reported. Oakley's exit timeline for the business remained unclear at the time, the report noted.

During its investment period, Oakley has supported IU with investments in talent acquisition to broaden the group's management team, said the press release. Moreover, it enhanced its IT delivery platform with regards to content creation, marketing and learning delivery. Under the sponsor's ownership, the group has also hired more professors and opened new campuses, while student numbers grew from 15,000 in 2017 to over 100,000 today, it said.

IU Group is on track to deliver around EUR 500m in revenues in 2023, it said. Oakley's renewed investment in the company is set to drive the next phase of growth in existing as well as international markets, driven by organic growth and acquisitions in key geographies, it said. IU is also aiming to expand its concurrent offering of 70 English language bachelor's and master's degrees, while also deploying an AI-powered teaching assistant across all its English programmes.

Liberum Capital Limited acted as financial advisor to Oakley Capital Investments in the realisation of its investment. Lazard acted as sole financial advisor to Oakley Capital in connection with the continuation fund.

To date, the GP has delivered gross realised returns of 4x money and 67% IRR across all funds, according to the press release. It raised EUR 2.85bn for Oakley Capital Fund V in January 2023, bringing the firm's total AuM to EUR 8bn.

Most recently, the firm acquired a minority stake in Thomas's London Day Schools, a UK-headquartered family-run group of independent schools.

Company
IU Group, formerly known as Career Partner Group, was founded in 2000 and is the holding company of Germany-based private university International University of Applied Sciences (IU). It is a state-approved educational institution, with its main campus in Erfurt offering more than 200 bachelor's and master's programmes in German or English, both on campus and online. Its digital platform offers 350 accredited bachelor and master courses. It also offers staff development training courses to more than 15,000 companies. It has more than 100,000 students and 3,000 employees, while being present in more than 30 German cities.

People
IU Group − Sven Schuett (CEO).
Oakley Capital − Peter Dubens (managing partner and co-founder).

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