Education as an asset class: key takeaways from the London Business School's Private Capital Symposium

Insight

25.06.2026

We were delighted to sponsor the 2026 Private Capital Symposium at London Business School on 19 and 20 May.

Anthony Turner chaired a panel on Education as an asset class and investment opportunities for private capital. He was joined by Sofian Lignier of Providence Equity Partners, Ketan Mundhra of Oliver Wyman and Michael Sellman of Intellego.

The panel focused in particular on K12/secondary education in the UK and Europe, which surfaced a number of themes:

Trends in the sector over the last five years

Private capital investors are drawn to the sector due to resilient demand, recurrent revenue streams, a proven benefit in scaling and social impact.

Private capital acquirers have the capital, management expertise and risk tolerance to expand a school's footprint to support founders and school leaders to develop their strategies of expansion into new age groups or territories in response to demand from those new markets.

There has been a consolidation of schools in what has historically been a fragmented sector via the acquisition of founder or educator owned establishments.

Consolidation has also been driven by UK regulatory requirements. The requirement for UK independent schools to show public impact has created a need for reliable funding of bursaries. Expansion of UK school brands overseas has been one strategy to drive the required revenue.

The expansion of UK schools overseas

The expansion of UK schools has been a cornerstone of expansion of the market since the 1990s, with much of the focus on APAC geographies. This has been achieved through the 'export' of UK education institutions via a licensing, franchise or local partner model.

There has been increased scrutiny of franchise models. Brand protection through quality assurance was seen as crucial to the longevity of any franchising strategy.

Parents are increasingly focussed on seeing the substance behind the branding. Quality and assurance are a key concern for schools and investors looking to franchise abroad. There is particular focus on:

pastoral care and non-academic attainment;
English language teaching;
the right choice of curriculum for the jurisdiction; and
applying the gold standard safeguarding approach from the UK to overseas schools.

Increased appetite for locally adapted provision when franchising overseas. Local considerations have received increased focus as families who may previously have chosen to educate their children in the UK are now choosing to remain in their home jurisdiction and seek a similar level of educational quality, with curriculums adapted for the region.

Europe and LATAM will likely bring additional growth and capacity, with families returning from the UK and the Middle East will continue to be a strong proposition despite current geopolitical disruption, with a number of new school openings in the pipeline. Asia was a continued focus, but with expansion into China no longer being the focus. The USA presented potential (but not insurmountable) challenges with the different regulatory regimes across different states.

Across geographies, similar demographic trends were shaping demand. With families often having fewer children, there is more disposable income per child to pay for their education coupled with a greater scrutiny on the choice and quality of that education.

Regulatory and recruitment challenges

The imposition of VAT on school fees in the UK continues to result in school closures with a number of children moving back into state provision and UK schools looking at different revenue earning channels in response.

Export controls in some jurisdictions were also noted as a driver of demand for local provision, rather than sending children to the UK for education.

Recruitment was noted as a key concern for investors. While the franchising model can bring benefits in leveraging local expertise, it remains challenging to find and retain excellent teaching staff. Private capital backing can respond to that by providing compensation structures designed to recruit and retain high quality and motivated staff.

Impact of AI on the sector

The application of AI in education falls into two use cases:

its use in operations and finance; and
educational enhancement via 'EdTech'.

The consensus was that there are substantial gains to be made in respect of the former, particularly for staffing, timetabling, and general back-office functions.

There was less confidence in the ability of EdTech to improve delivery based on existing AI educational products although education around the safe use of AI was increasingly a topic in schools. With increased focus on limiting screen time, parents may also be less supportive of EdTech implementation.

Please see our previous articles:

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