BPP University to be sold

Law school set to change hands again in big money deal

Preparations for the sale of BPP University are reportedly underway just two years after its private equity owners snapped it up as part of a multi-million-pound deal.

It is understood Apollo Education Group, the US owners of professional education provider BPP University, of which BPP Law School is a subsidiary, has begun moves to sell the institution to test the appetite for for-profit investment, the Times Higher Education reports.

BPP University has been owned by Apollo Education Group since 2009. Alongside its UK operations, Apollo owns the University of Phoenix, Western International University and the College for Financial Planning. It purchased BPP Holdings (owner of BPP University) for over £303 million.

In 2017, Apollo Education was snapped up by a trio of US private equity firms for £760 million. It is understood BPP University will be sold under the parent company’s new private ownership.

Citing unnamed sources, the report claims New York-headquartered investment bank Morgan Stanley has been appointed to handle the process and is putting together the documentation required to go out to the market.

BPP, which was granted university status in 2013, isn’t the only education giant to have changed hands in recent years. In 2015, The University of Law was sold to Global University Systems (GUS) for an undisclosed sum. The law school was previously owned by Montagu Private Equity, which bought the then College of Law in 2012 for £200 million.

Yesterday’s sale speculation comes just two years before the Solicitors Qualifying Examination (SQE) comes into force in September 2021. The Legal Practice Course (LPC) and Graduate Diploma in Law (GDL) are set to be scrapped in favour of a centralised assessment, and will likely give rise to a number of new entrants to the law school market.

BPP University declined to comment.