POELLATH advises management on sale of AKAD University to Galileo Global Education

AKAD, Germany’s oldest state-accredited, private distance learning university headquartered in Stuttgart, specializes in distance learning for those who are employed and offers 78 study programs with Bachelor’s, Master’s and MBA degrees and more than 100 continuing education options. Around 12,000 adults are currently enrolled at AKAD University, most of whom are completing their studies while they are employed.

AURELIUS acquired AKAD from Franz Cornelsen Bildungsgruppe in April 2014 and has since considerably repositioned the company. On the basis of a newly developed platform and modularization concept, 63 new study programs have since been introduced. Overall, the number of new students has increased by an average of more than 20 percent per year since the takeover.

Galileo, headquartered in Munich, is an international education group and the largest private higher education group in Europe with around 170,000 students in 14 countries worldwide.

POELLATH provided legal and tax advice to the management with the following Munich team:

• Dr. Barbara Koch-Schulte (partner, lead, M&A, private equity, management participation, tax).
• Dr. Benedikt Hohaus (partner, M&A, private equity, management participation)