Acquisition of Element K Corporation

Acqui­si­tion of Ele­ment K Cor­po­ra­tion (Rochester, NY, USA) by Skill­Soft Cor­po­ra­tion (USA, Ire­land) for $110M.

Skill­Soft is a lead­ing SAAS provider of on-demand e-learning and per­for­mance solu­tions, with Berk­shire Part­ners, Advent Inter­na­tional Cor­po­ra­tion and Bain Cap­i­tal Part­ners as investors. Ele­ment K Cor­po­ra­tion is a global learn­ing solu­tions com­pany serv­ing major cor­po­ra­tions in a vari­ety of indus­tries, as well as gov­ern­ment agen­cies, uni­ver­si­ties, and train­ing centers.

The acqui­si­tion adds to SkillSoft’s exist­ing offer­ings in learn­ing con­tent and learn­ing plat­form tech­nol­ogy through the addi­tion of Ele­ment K’s com­ple­men­tary offer­ings in e-learning con­tent, vir­tual labs, ILT print mate­ri­als and cus­tom devel­op­ment ser­vices. Also, the addi­tion of Ele­ment K employ­ees in sales, cus­tomer sup­port and prod­uct devel­op­ment strength­ens SkillSoft’s long-term abil­ity to com­pete for a greater share of the $48 bil­lion global cor­po­rate train­ing mar­ket that includes many larger play­ers with more com­pre­hen­sive prod­uct offerings.

The divest­ment helps the own­ers of Ele­ment K become content-agnostic and increase their abil­ity to pro­vide its large clients a broader ven­dor neu­tral solu­tion includ­ing custom-developed content.

Mor­gan Stan­ley and Bar­clays Cap­i­tal acted as finan­cial advi­sors to Skill­Soft on the transaction.

Vec­torSpan acted as advi­sors to the own­ers of Ele­ment K.