Halyard Capital has sold its portfolio company, EducationDynamics, to an investor group led by Muirlands Capital, KnowledgeShares and Prudential Capital Group. Halyard will continue to be a minority investor in the company.
EducationDynamics (EDDY) is a provider of student recruitment and retention services to colleges and universities. The company’s services are used to manage a school’s relationship with students from initial search to inquiry, from inquiry to application, from acceptance to enrollment, and from enrollment through retention. EDDY provides its services to more than 900 clients through a network of web properties including eLearners.com, GradSchools.com, EducationConnection.com, and StudyAbroad.com. EDDY is headquartered in Hoboken, NJ with additional offices in Boca Raton, FL and Newtown Square, PA (www.educationdynamics.com).
“We are extremely pleased to have worked with the management team at EDDY to build one of the leading businesses focused on helping colleges find and retain the highest quality students,” said Bruce Eatroff, Founding Partner of Halyard Capital.
Halyard specializes in middle-market leveraged buyouts and growth equity investments in technology-enabled information, data analytics, communications and business services companies that cater to the healthcare, education, marketing services, human capital management and media sectors. The firm has over $600 million of capital under management and is based in New York (www.halyard.com).
The sale of EducationDynamics is the fourth significant liquidity event from Halyard Capital Fund II, following the sale of Engauge to Publicis in August 2013, the partial monetization of OneSource Virtual HR to Technology Crossover Ventures in June 2015 and the sale of Datamyx to Deluxe Corporation in October 2015.
“Halyard Capital has been an outstanding financial and strategic partner and was the original architect behind the EducationDynamics strategy,” said Bruce Douglas, the CEO of EDDY. “We are extremely pleased that three prominent, experienced investors – Muirlands, KnowledgeShares and Prudential – are committed to taking our business to the next level.”
Muirlands Capital is a lower middle market firm that invests in growth-oriented businesses across a range of industries. The firm was formed in 2014 by Richard Lobo who had previously spent over 20 years at Chicago-based CHS Capital.
KnowledgeShares is a public-private partnership that invests financial and human capital to help grow colleges, universities, businesses, and not-for- profit institutions. The organization is based near Cleveland in Westlake, OH (www.KnowledgeShares.org).
Prudential Capital Group invests senior debt, mezzanine and equity and currently manages a portfolio of investments aggregating to nearly $74 billion. The firm has offices in Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Frankfurt, London, Los Angeles, Milan, Minneapolis, Newark, New York, Paris and San Francisco (www.prudentialcapitalgroup.com).
Lazard Middle Market (www.lazardmm.com) was the financial advisor to EDDY and Halyard Capital.
© 2015 PEPD • Private Equity’s Leading News Magazine • 12-11-15
