French for-profit higher education group Studialis has been acquired by Galileo Global Education, a Luxembourg-based post-secondary group focused on Europe and Latin America, for upwards of €200m.
Speaking with The PIE News, Bruno Mourgue d’Algue, CFO of Galileo Global Education, confirmed that the company was bought from previous owners Bregal Capital for between €200m and €250m.
“We believe we are now a world leader in arts, design and creativity, and Europe is really a key destination in terms of these studies”
Its 23 institutions, including Paris School of Business and renowned drama school Cours Florent, bring Galileo’s total stable of schools to 28 and account for around half of the 40,000 students enrolled across the whole group.
They join Galileo’s existing brands including French art school Atelier de Sèvre and design school LISAA, as well as Istituto Marangoni, an international fashion and design school with campuses in Milan, London, Paris and Shanghai.
The acquisition makes Galileo, which is owned by Providence Equity Partners, Europe’s largest post-secondary education group both in terms of geographical spread and breadth of curricula, according to Mourgue d’Algue.
“One of the rationale for Studialis and Galileo coming together is in addition to being number one in Europe in higher education, we believe we are now a world leader in arts, design and creativity, and Europe is really a key destination in terms of these studies,” he said.
“All the schools we have in the group have a leadership position, whether it’s in fashion design, graphic and motion design, industrial design, fine arts, digital arts… we are covering all these different segments of art, design and creativity, each stamped with very strong brands and what we want to do is promote these brands.”
The group is keen to further its internationalisation strategy, both by increasing its cohort of international students (which currently account for around 10% of total enrolments) and building bridges between its institutions.
Its German university, Macromedia University of Applied Sciences, has already signed an agreement with new addition Paris School of Business that will help it to leverage the Parisian institution’s expertise as it sets up its own business school.
Paris School of Business’s experience in the field makes it “the perfect partner to accelerate that development”, Mourgue d’Algue said.
“We want to develop partnerships with the other schools in the group,” he continued, citing Instituto de Estudios Universitarios in Mexico in particular.
“Galileo has been built from the start with that spirit, of being very international, so that’s an expertise that we can leverage for the other schools,” he added.
