We confess: merchant banking can be boring.
But not all merchant bankers are boring!
In fact, our experience is quite the opposite.
Look around at this group of entrepreneurs, business founders, key CEOs and their C-suite teams of marketing, financial, legal and business development executives, investment bankers, lenders, lawyers, accountants, and other professionals — people involved in the bid and ask transaction process — and you have proof-positive that God has a sense of humor!
“Feeling Lucky” is simply a way for you to get to know us. Interact. Kick around ideas. It’s an active blog you’re free to enjoy if you have the time and inclination.
You’ll find continuously updated photos, free downloads of movies and music, tips for raising money for your favorite charities, a look at our vendors of choice, interesting articles, games, topical discussion boards, and just general rhetoric.
(“Feeling Lucky” has proven quite popular with executives stuck on very long conference calls during the transaction process.)
Enjoy!
| EBITDA | REV | |
| Median | 14.5 | 2.7 |
| Average | 16.6 | 2.4 |
The following charts were produced showing the past three full years of transactions in the Lead Generation arena…
EBITDA Multiples year to year are erratic or not enough to place a good value on Revenue Multiples appear steadily growing as with most markets we have studied over the past three years…
Accreditation Advisory
|
This is one of a series of advisories prepared by the Higher Education Group of Dow Lohnes on the implications of changes to the Higher Education Act of 1965, as amended (”HEA”) arising from its reauthorization upon the enactment of the Higher Education Opportunity Act of 2008, signed into law by President Bush on August 14, 2008. |
This advisory focuses on changes in the law that will affect the conduct and standards of accreditors recognized by the Secretary of Education as gatekeepers for access to many Federal programs, notably the Student Financial Aid Programs authorized under Title IV of the HEA (the “Title IV Programs”). We expect the Department of Education (“ED”) will begin the process of developing regulations implementing the new statutory requirements, and that in turn will result in affected accreditors circulating proposed standards for comment.
The new HEA provisions further expand the criteria the Secretary will apply in continuing the recognition of accrediting agencies. Notably, the expanded criteria will require accreditors to increase the oversight of certain campus activities, while at the same time increasing the due process protections afforded institutions before a loss of accreditation. Following is our analysis of key changes in the law affecting accreditation and relations between accreditors and their member institutions.
In most years, some college closes for good. Usually it is a small college that has been struggling financially for years. Sometimes it shuts down. Other times it is merged into another institution. When these closures take place, they are frequently accompanied by predictions that many more closures will follow and that small, private colleges are somehow endangered. To date, these predictions have not been accurate: New colleges have been created, and there has been no major shrinkage. As the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities points out, the total number of private colleges has been remained at about 1,600 since 1980.
But some experts on the economics of higher education — including some who have in the past been skeptical that more mergers would take place — are now predicting that more colleges will be forced to take that step. No one is predicting that “for sale” signs are about to go up on hundreds of colleges. And many colleges have decades of history of operating successfully with little money and only the most minimally balanced of budgets. But a number of experts think that we are about to shift from a period in which one or two colleges closed or merged each year to a period in which that figure is significantly greater.
“For a long time, colleges with small endowments, tuition-driven, sensitive to the need to constantly recruit students, have found amazingly imaginative ways to thrive,” said Richard H. Ekman, president of the Council of Independent Colleges. But they are now being hit with too many “negative external factors” all at once: huge increases in energy costs, students who will enroll only if offered deep discounts, an economic downturn that limits families’ ability to pay and donors’ ability to contribute.
-
-
-
-
We do the things today that others wont, so that tomorrow we can afford to do the things that others cant.
- Larry Tenebaum
The Walls of traditional academic institutions are crumbling. Students want their education fast, delivered on their tools like computers, iPods, cells, with content relevant to careers, and 24/7. Professors that demand learnings within their Walls are a thing of the past. Communication tools are making college fun, fast, and more social than ever.
-Michael K. Clifford, 2008
CLEVELAND — Thursday, August 21, 2008 marked the beginning of a bold, new era for historic 160 year old Myers University, which only months ago was financially troubled and on the verge of closing its doors. On that date, a court-approved investor group acquired the University free and clear of historical debts and liabilities (for which a negotiated settlement amount was paid) and contributed a significant amount of additional capital to fund ongoing operations.
The transition of ownership was completed in only 90 days. That the transfer took place so efficiently and quickly “is a glowing tribute to all of the parties involved, including the regulatory bodies, as well as the faculty and new leadership team,” says George Kidd, Myers’ President. These bodies include the Higher Learning Commission of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools, Ohio Board of Regents, Ohio State Board of Career Colleges and Schools, U.S. Department of Education, as well as the faculty and new leadership team.
NEW ISSUE AMERICA
Summer Break May Soon End For Fast-Growing Adult University
BY AMY REEVES
INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY
When Grand Canyon Education filed to go public on May 13, school stocks were just coming out of a trough. The credit crisis had worked its way to the world of student loans, knocking such champions as Apollo (APOL) and ITT (ESI) off their perches.
Since then, however, for-profit education has become one of IBD’s top 10 industry groups.
As the loan situation has stabilized, investors seem to have remembered that adult schools are usually a haven in hard economic times, drawing workers seeking to boost their employability.
That’s encouraged watchers of the nearly moribund IPO market to think a pricing might be nearer at hand.
“In my opinion, there’s a likely chance it will come to market sooner rather than later,” said Morningstar analyst Todd Young.
Still, he cautions that Grand Canyon ’s peers have yet to regain their pre-crunch highs, so the firm might wait a bit for a friendlier market.
FORTUNE Small Business magazine has released its first-ever compilation of America’s best colleges for entrepreneurs. In the online education category, GCU was chosen among the top five schools offering “the best online programs that blend quality with flexibility.” Also included in the ranking are: Boston University, University of Houston at Victoria, University of Wyoming, and Western Carolina University.
To compile the lists, FORTUNE Small Business spent seven months interviewing hundreds of entrepreneurs, professors, students, alumni, university administrators and venture capitalists.
As Barack Obama, the Democratic presidential candidate, quietly prepares for Denver, the focus at the
convention will be on drama and psychodrama. The drama comes from doubts about whether Mr Obama can give the speech of his life; the psychodrama from the Clintons, who have muscled their way into two prime-time speaking slots.
Dynastic strife and do-or-die live performances are hard to beat. But the assembled officials should also turn their attention to the academic universe of charts, equations and carefully honed arguments in Claudia Goldin and Lawrence Katz’s fine new book, The Race Between Technology and Education . Goldin and Katz, both professors of economics at Harvard, tackle the most important US economic trend, and, hence, most critical domestic issue - growing income inequality.
Link to Article : blog.cleveland.com
The Cleveland port might have to draw on some $2 million in reserves and operating money to cover the financial fallout at Myers University.
The Cleveland-Cuyahoga County Port Authority probably will recover some of that money, when proceeds from last week’s sale of the university to a new owner are divvied up among creditors.
The port is among those creditors. It loaned $5.7 million to Myers in 2004 from the port’s bond fund program, so the university could buy a 41,000-square-foot building at Chester Avenue and East 40th Street. The building houses classrooms and offices.
The financially troubled school almost closed in December. Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge Daniel Gaul intervened.
Months of wrangling culminated in a $5.25 million sale of the school’s assets to the newly formed Myers University Systems LLC, backed by a California investment company called Significant Partners.
