Education Management Corporation (EDMC) and Echo Global Logistics (ECHO) both listed on the NASDAQ on Friday. Education Management, which provides campus-based and online post-secondary education programs, raised $360 million on Thursday by offering 20 million shares at $18.00, the low end of the proposed $18.00-$20.00 range. Priced at the $14 midpoint of its proposed range, Echo Global Logistics, which provides web-based shipping and freight management services, raised $80 million.

The IPO market sprang to life last week with 7 deals completed, and the momentum is set to continue this week with another 4 deals slated to price. Similar to last week, the current IPO line-up is well-diversified in terms of size, sector and growth profile, and includes two PE-backed deals, a venture-backed growth enterprise and another newly-formed specialty finance company looking to take advantage of opportunities in the distressed debt marketplace. Akin to the two deals that we featured in our write-up last week (Select Medical and Shanda Games), our current featured IPO is anything but a newcomer to the public arena.

Education Management (EDMC), a provider of campus-based and online post-secondary education programs, is expected to go public this week. The Pittsburgh-based company had been ready to price its IPO in December 2007 but nixed it once the markets soured.

Business Overview (from prospectus)

As the old maxim goes,"Those who can't do, teach." In public schools, perhaps. But the private Educational Services sector has quietly become a good place to invest, especially as compared to almost all of the rest of the lousy market sectors worldwide.

After about two years of sharp business pullback, the operating performance of many for-profit educational institutions has started to recover. The slowing growth in the mid-30s age demographic, greater competition and closer regulatory scrutiny had caused a cleansing of less worthy institutions the past few years. Now, with higher unemployment translating into more time to re-tool and retrain, mature students (many with families and/or underemployed with set hours) enrolling in for-profit schools are beginning to translate into higher and more stable online clients gravitating towards student-friendly higher learning ports.

F4Q08 Earnings Call

September 10, 2008 10:30 am ET

The Stalwart submits: Well just as for-profit educators looked like they wouldn't make the comeback many contrarians such as this author expected, it seems private equity has come in to save the day at least for the time being. Then again being bought out isn't yet a comeback now is it. Nevertheless, turns out Providence Equity Partners & Goldman Sachs have announced that they will buy-out Education Management (EDMC) for US$3.4bn:

The transaction will be financed through a combination of equity contributed by the private equity sponsors and debt financing provided by Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch and Bank of America.