M&A opportunities in Educational Publishing
Identified M&A opportunities in a large European market for a leading publisher of traditional and digital educational content.
Our team assessed the national and regional markets for print and digital educational publishing, selected promising market segments, and identified attractive M&A candidates, building a fact base and insights that supported the client to engage immediately with targets.
Context
Our client, a publisher of traditional and digital educational content, had built leading positions in several European countries. Staying at the cutting edge was a particular challenge in a market subject to widespread and rapid digital innovation.
With this in mind, the client was weighing entering a specific new national market through M&A, and wanted to map that market, assess the attractiveness of the different segments, and identify potential M&A candidates. This, in a market that was highly fragmented, and populated by a large number of small-scale players.
Approach
Our team interviewed government officials, teachers and publishers to build an understanding of market fundamentals and trends, including decisionmakers, influencers and payers, building an assessment of the attractiveness of different regional markets.
Within priority markets, we identified and profiled specific potential candidates, including their product, revenue trajectory, and ownership, and shortlisted the most interesting targets. This included product testing and assessment, to ascertain whether targets offered a valuable technical platform for broader rollout as well as a local market position.
Impact
The client’s M&A and Strategy leads endorsed the recommendations, and with their board’s approval immediately moved forward: supported by the project’s focused insights and robust fact base, they engaged directly in discussions with potential targets.