Audax Private Equity has sold Cadence Education, a provider of early childhood education, to Morgan Stanley Global Private Equity.
Cadence Education provides its education services to children ages six weeks to twelve years old. The company has the capacity to serve more than 20,000 students across its platform of more than 150 schools across 20 states. Since Audax’ initial 2007 investment and partnership with Doug MacKay, Cadence’s founder, the company has acquired 74 schools through 28 acquisitions and opened 14 greenfield locations. Cadence is headquartered in Scottsdale, AZ (www.cadence-education.com).
“Doug MacKay, Dave Goldberg, Paul Malek and the rest of the Cadence team have transformed the business from a multi-regional presence of education centers into a national platform of schools through add-on acquisitions, greenfield school development, and industry-leading systems and processes. We wish the company continued success with its new partner,” said Geoffrey Rehnert, Co-Chief Executive Officer of Audax Group.
The Audax Group makes control investments of $10 million to $100 million in middle market companies with transaction values of $25 million to $500 million. Sectors of interest include industrial manufacturing; energy; outsourced industrial services; consumer products; healthcare devices and services; non-asset based logistics; technology; aerospace & defense; business services; and direct marketing. The firm was founded in 1999 and has offices in Boston, New York and Menlo Park (www.audaxgroup.com).
“Audax has been tremendously valuable to Cadence throughout our partnership. We are proud of our accomplishments together and will greatly miss their exceptional team of professionals who were such a big part of our success,” said Dave Goldberg, CEO of Cadence .
Morgan Stanley Global Private Equity, the buyer of Cadence, makes private equity and equity-related investments of $75 million to $150 million in companies with enterprise values of $100 million to $1 billion. The firm is based in New York (www.morganstanley.com/privateequity).
FS Investments provided a $120 million senior secured unitranche loan to support this acquisition. FS Investments was founded in 2007 as Franklin Square Capital Partners and is headquartered in Philadelphia with additional offices in Orlando and Washington, DC (www.fsinvestmentcorp.com).
Lazard Middle Market (www.lazard.com) was the financial advisor to Cadence and Audax.
© 2016 Private Equity Professional • 9-21-16
