French group specialized in private higher education
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Galileo Global Education S.A. is Europe’s largest for-profithigher education provider, with over 200 private colleges (or écoles), universities and campuses around the world and its head office in Paris, France. It claims to be number one in Europe, but ranks behind Chinese groups such as TAL Education Group and New Oriental worldwide.
2011: Creation of the group by US fund Providence Equity
Galileo Global Education was created when the American investment fund Providence Equity acquired Istituto Marangoni (Italy) in 2011, and began to expand by acquiring public schools from a variety of backgrounds in France, Germany, Mexico and elsewhere. At the same time, Studialis, a French higher education group, is expanding and acquiring schools in a range of sectors: management, IT, arts and crafts, etc.[1]
2016: acquisition of Studialis
In 2016, Galileo Global Education acquired Studialis, formerly Eductis, for €250 million. Studialis will be renamed Galileo Global Education France in July 2023.[2][3]
In April 2018, Téthys Invest, a subsidiary of the Bettencourt Meyers family's holding company, became a reference shareholder in the Galileo Global Education group and sits on the Board of Directors alongside the American investment fund Providence Equity, the majority shareholder.[4]
2020: sale to the Bettencourt Meyers family and Bpifrance
On 13 February 2020, US investment fund Providence Equity announced the sale of its majority stake in the Galileo Global Education group for an estimated €2.3 billion.[5][6] The Group was sold in March 2020 to a shareholder group comprising Téthys Invest, the holding company of the Bettencourt-Meyers family, Bpifrance, the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and Montagu Private Equity. The group is managed by international investment funds.[7][8]
In 2021, the Group acquired IPETH, a physiotherapy school in Mexico, as well as LMA and Health Events, and created the Eva Santé school in France, a training institute for care assistants.[11][12]
In 2022, Galileo Global Education created ELIJE, a law school in Paris, and acquired AKAD University in Germany and TAI School of Arts in Spain.[12] That same year, the Group acquired a 40% stake in EM Lyon Business School, consistently ranked among the best business schools in Europe.[13][14]
Organization
Locations
The site in Paris where several Galileo Global Education schools are due to be located in 2025.
The Galileo Global Education group comprises more than 50 private colleges and universities, and 106 campuses in 15 countries. It sells courses to 200,000 students, more than 50% of them in France, and more than 50% online.[8][15][16]
Nackademin University of Applied Sciences (Solna, Stockholm County)
Senegal
Institut Supérieur de Management (Dakar)
Business model
The international investment funds that are shareholders in Galileo Global Education are aiming for financial profitability in a market that was structured in the 2000s and is still perceived as profitable, and even as promising. While Bpifrance's (the French Public Investment Bank) support for the group does not allow it to influence its strategy, it does provide shareholders with an incentive.[8]
The Group's use of online training, as with its subsidiary Studi, guarantees high profitability, since the formula saves on premises and reduces the number of teachers.[8]
Sociologist and economist Aurélien Casta estimated in 2022 that families know little or nothing about the role of investment funds in private colleges (écoles) and grandes écoles in France, despite the fact that the country is one of the most developed in terms of private for-profit higher education.[8]
Galileo Global Education has been registered as an interest representative with the Haute Autorité pour la Transparence de la Vie Publique since February 2021. In 2022, the company will declare expenses of less than €50,000 for this activity.[21]
Controversial issues
In February 2023, the group was the target of an investigation by the French newspaper Libération into ‘the underbelly of an educational business that prospers thanks to the laissez-faire attitude of the state’.[22]
In 2024, the French public television channel France 2's programme Complément d'Enquête gave the floor to a Galileo executive who said that financial interests were more important than educational ones. The report also examines the links between Muriel Pénicaud and the group, with the former French Minister for Employment now a board member.[23]
