Over the last twelve months, LEK's global education practice has worked on a number of K-12 platform transactions.
Here are our key learnings.
Firstly, K-12 platforms continue to focus on attractive markets, either in terms of household income growth and or demographic growth.
Secondly, their portfolios consist of largely high performing schools, Schools that are gaining share in the markets in which they operate at and or operate at high levels of capacity utilization.
Thirdly, platforms have continued to grow fees in line or above inflation and in many cases faster than their competitors.
And finally platforms have continued to add value to the acquisitions they've made both in terms of their commercial performance but also in terms of the academic outcomes they're delivering to their parents and students.
So what's next for these global K-12 platforms? We still believe there's still a lot of headroom for growth, not only through M&A, there's lots of assets assets out there to be acquired, it's very fragmented markets still, but also through brand extensions and greenfield expansions. Any case, global education practice looks forward to continuing to support the growth of this sector in 2025 and beyond.
