Apollo Group and Private Firm to Invest Up to $1-Billion in International Ventures.

This post is from The Chronicle of Higher Education.

The company that owns the University of Phoenix announced on Monday a venture with the Carlyle Group, a private-equity firm, that will invest up to $1-billion in education institutions and services abroad. The parent company, the Apollo Group, will control 80.1 percent of the joint venture, to be called Apollo Global Inc.

The venture is likely to focus on regions with a profitable mix of robust young populations and government-financed universities that are slow to expand, such as Latin America and Asia. The deal has yet to announce any investments.

The Apollo Group, whose University of Phoenix is the largest university in the United States, has dabbled in international investments before, putting money into a small company called Apollo International that was formed in 1998 (The Chronicle, August 11, 2000). That company has quietly been dissolved, and most of its personnel and investments have been brought into the Apollo Group, said Trace A. Urdan, an education-industry analyst with Signal Hill Capital Group.

Apollo International sought to use Apollo's U.S. model, which is aimed at working adults, and adapt it to full-time students at traditional universities overseas, primarily through preset curricula. One venture in South America created a private college with standardized lectures, in partnership with a Brazilian company (The Chronicle, June 27, 2003).

The new Apollo Global group may operate under a similar strategy, said Mr. Urdan, but it would receive greater contacts and investment discipline from the Carlyle Group, which has experience in structuring successful international deals. The Carlyle Group also has experience in investments involving higher education. In 2005 it acquired the Universidad Latinoamericana, a private university with campuses in Mexico City and Cuernavaca, Mexico.

"The money is more like a headline because the reality is you're only investing it one investment at a time," said Mr. Urdan. "It's going to be a while before they spend $1-billion."

The Apollo Group also announced Monday that Ann Kirschner, dean of the Macaulay Honors College at the City University of New York, will join its board of directors on November 1.