I-plug Valuation Multiples

Pearson is a British education and assessment company headquartered in London, listed on the London Stock Exchange as a FTSE 100 constituent with a secondary New York Stock Exchange listing through American depositary receipts. It is organised into five business units: Assessment & Qualifications, Virtual Learning, English Language Learning, Higher Education, and Enterprise Learning and Skills. It owns Edexcel, one of the main GCSE and A-level examination boards in England, and sells learning materials, assessments, qualifications, virtual schooling and digital learning products to schools, universities, governments, employers and individual learners. In 2025 it reported revenue of £3,577 million, operating income of £507 million and an average workforce of 17,062. The company traces its origins to 1844, when Samuel Pearson set up the business that became S. Pearson & Son; in the twentieth century it built a publishing and media portfolio that included the Financial Times, a 50% stake in The Economist and Penguin Books. Under Marjorie Scardino it refocused on education, forming Pearson Education in 1998, and between 2015 and 2020 it sold the Financial Times, its Economist stake and its remaining stake in Penguin Random House. Omar Abbosh, formerly of Microsoft, has been chief executive since January 2024.

New Oriental Education & Technology is a prominent private education provider in China, offering a wide array of educational services. These include overseas test preparation and consulting services, high school academic tutoring, nonacademic tutoring, and intelligent learning systems and devices. Additionally, the company holds a 57% ownership stake in East Buy, a leading player in the livestreaming e-commerce market.

Established in 1960 and domiciled in the Netherlands, Randstad is one of only three global recruitment providers, placing over 200,000 permanent candidates and 2 million temporary candidates annually. In addition, the company provides recruitment process outsourcing services, managed services programs, payroll services, outplacement services, and job postings.

Duolingo Inc is a technology company that develops a mobile learning platform to learn languages and is the top-grossing app in the Education category on both Google Play and the Apple App Store. Its products are powered by sophisticated data analytics and artificial intelligence and delivered with class art, animation, and design to make it easier for learners to stay motivated master new material, and achieve their learning goals. Its solutions include the Duolingo Language Learning App, Super Duolingo, Duolingo English Test: AI-Driven Language Assessment, Duolingo For Schools, Duolingo ABC, and Duolingo Math. It has four predominant sources of revenue; time-based subscriptions, in-app advertising placement by third parties, and the Duolingo English Test, and In-App Purchases.

TAL Education Group is a smart learning solutions provider in China. It operates a few business lines including enrichment learning, high school academic tutoring, learning technology, and content solutions. Among those business lines, TAL focuses on enrichment learning and content solutions.

Laureate Education is an international higher-education group founded in 1989 as Sylvan Learning Systems and historically headquartered in Baltimore, Maryland. Its institutions provide undergraduate and postgraduate qualifications through campus-based and online programmes. The network serves students across professional fields including business, health sciences, engineering, technology, design and hospitality. Revenue primarily comes from tuition and related education services paid by students, sometimes supported by public financing programmes. Laureate entered international higher education through Universidad Europea de Madrid in 1999 and expanded online education through Walden University in 2001. It sold its principal school-age education operations in 2003 and adopted the Laureate Education name in 2004. A KKR-backed consortium took the company private in 2007. By 2015 the network included more than eighty institutions across multiple regions, combining owned schools, controlled nonprofit institutions and selected management arrangements. The company became a Delaware public benefit corporation in 2015.

Graham Holdings Company is a diversified holding company with operations spanning educational services, television broadcasting, healthcare, manufacturing, automotive dealerships, and other businesses. The Company's education activities are conducted through Kaplan, whose services include academic preparation programs for international students, English-language programs, exam preparation, and career and academic advisement. These services are provided to students, schools, and colleges, both domestically and outside the United States. It operates through seven reportable segments: Kaplan International, Kaplan Higher Education, Kaplan Supplemental Education, Television Broadcasting, CSI, Manufacturing and Automotive, with key revenue coming from the Education and Automotive segments.

Adecco Group is a provider of human capital solutions, with the majority of its revenue coming from flexible placement but also offering permanent placement, career transition, outsourcing, and consulting services in engineering, digital, and IT. The company is organized into three business units: Adecco, Akkodis, and LHH. The company provides services to businesses and organizations throughout Europe, North America, Asia-Pacific, South America, and North Africa.

Adtalem Global Education is a Chicago-headquartered provider of postsecondary education in healthcare, business, and technology fields. It oversees institutions like Chamberlain University, Ross University School of Medicine, DeVry University, and Becker Professional Education, enrolling students in nursing, medical, accounting, and IT programs across the United States, Caribbean, and Brazil.

Grand Canyon Education Inc is a publicly traded education services company dedicated to serving colleges and universities. GCE's university partner is Grand Canyon University, an Arizona non-profit corporation that operates a comprehensive regionally accredited university that offers graduate and undergraduate degree programs, emphases, and certificates across nine colleges, both online and on the ground at its campus in Phoenix, Arizona, and at four off-site classroom andlaboratory sites. The Company generates all of its revenue through service agreements with its university partners.

PERSOL Holdings is a publicly listed Japanese human-resources services group headquartered in Tokyo. It was established as Temp Holdings in October 2008, building on the Tempstaff temporary-staffing business founded in 1973. The group serves employers seeking temporary workers, permanent recruits and outsourced business services, as well as people seeking employment and career development. Its businesses earn fees from staffing assignments, recruitment placements, employment advertising and outsourced services. The group expanded through acquisitions of specialist staffing and technology businesses, including Intelligence Holdings in April 2013. It subsequently adopted the PERSOL Holdings name in July 2017 and reorganized several operating companies under the same group brand. Its subsidiaries provide staffing, career services, business-process outsourcing and technology-related workforce services across Japan and other Asia-Pacific markets.

Korn Ferry is a consulting firm that powers performance. The Company helps unlock the potential in people and unleash transformation across organizations synchronizing, operations, and talent to accelerate performance, fuel growth, and inspire a legacy of change. The company's segment includes Consulting, Digital, Executive Search North America, Executive Search EMEA, Executive Search APAC, Executive Search Latin America, Professional Search & Interim and RPO. The company generates the majority of its revenue from the Executive Search segment and Consulting segment. The Executive search segment helps organizations recruit board-level, chief executive, and other C-suite/senior executive and general management talent to deliver lasting impact.

East Buy Holding Ltd is a live-streaming platform that focuses on selecting premium products for customers. The company operates in three reportable segments: Private Label Products and Livestreaming E-Commerce, College Education, and Institutional Customers. The majority of its revenue comes from private label products and the direct e-commerce segment, i.e., direct online commerce with private label products sold to individual customers and providing commission services.

FibraEduca Management SC invests in real estate opportunities in the education sector. The company seeks investment opportunities in the education sector with administrative efficiency to generate returns to investors.

Bright Horizons Family Solutions Inc provider of early education and child care, family care solutions, and workforce education services that help working families and client employees personally and professionally. It provides services under multi-year contracts with employers that offer early education and child care, back-up care, and educational advisory services as part of their employee benefits package. The company has three business segments; full-service center-based child care, backup care, and educational advisory services. The majority of the revenue is generated by full-service center-based child care, which includes traditional center-based child care and early education services. Other services provided by the company include in-home child and elder care, and Others.

Stride Inc is a technology company providing an educational platform to deliver proprietary and third-party curriculum, software systems, and educational services designed to facilitate individualized learning for students and adults throughout the U.S. The platform delivers products and services to attract, enroll, educate, track progress, and support students. It provides customized solutions to public and private schools, school districts, charter boards, employers, government agencies, and consumers. Its platform addresses two markets in the K-12 space: General Education and Career Learning, with products and services for the General Education market predominantly focused on core subjects for kindergarten through twelfth grade students.

Robert Half Inc was founded in 1948, Robert Half provides temporary, permanent, and outcome-based staffing for both in-person and remote positions in the finance and accounting, technology, legal, marketing, and administrative fields. Its subsidiary consulting arm, Protiviti, specializes in technology, risk, auditing, and compliance matters. The firm generates its sales inside the U.S. and is one of the specialized firms in the fragmented U.S. staffing industry.

First Advantage Corp is a provider of software and data in the Human Resources technology industry. The company provides end-to-end identity solutions, criminal background screening, credential verifications, drug and health screening, and continuous risk monitoring. It combines AI-powered proprietary technology platforms with proprietary data, primary source data, and third-party data. Its reportable segments are First Advantage Americas, First Advantage International, and Sterling. The company generates maximum revenue from the Sterling segment, which provides similar services as compared to First Advantage's Americas and International segments on a global basis. Geographically, the company generates the majority of its revenue from the United States.

TriNet Group is an American professional employer organization (PEO) headquartered in Dublin, California, providing outsourced human resources to small and medium-sized businesses. Under a co-employment model it runs payroll and payroll tax administration, sponsors health, dental, retirement and workers' compensation benefits, and advises clients on employment-law compliance and risk, with web-based self-service portals for managers and staff. Clients range from about 3 to 2,500 employees. It earns professional service fees plus insurance service revenues from the benefits it bills to clients; in 2025 total revenues were $5.0 billion, of which $4.2 billion was insurance service revenue and $719 million professional service revenue, with net income of $155 million and about 334,000 average worksite employees. TriNet was founded in 1988 by Martin Babinec in San Leandro, California, took growth investment from General Atlantic in 2004 and listed on the New York Stock Exchange in March 2014 under the ticker TNET. It grew by acquisition, buying Gevity in 2009, Strategic Outsourcing in 2012 and Zenefits in 2022.

John Wiley & Sons Inc is a publisher and a trusted leader in research and learning. The company segment includes: Research, which includes the reporting lines of Research Publishing and Research Solutions, and Learning includes the Academic and Professional reporting lines and consists of publishing, courseware, and assessments. Its industry-principal content, services, platforms, and knowledge networks are tailored to meet the evolving needs of its customers and partners, including researchers, students, instructors, professionals, institutions, and corporations. The company empowers knowledge-seekers to transform today’s obstacles into tomorrow’s brightest opportunities. For more than two centuries, the company has been delivering on its timeless mission to unlock human potential.

Jinhai Medical Technology Ltd is an investment holding company. Along with its subsidiaries, it is principally engaged in providing medical equipment in China and manpower outsourcing and ancillary services to building and construction contractors in Singapore. The group also provides IT services, construction ancillary services (which comprise warehousing, cleaning, and building maintenance works), and dormitory services in Singapore. It generates maximum revenue from the sale of minimally invasive surgery solutions, medical products, and related services in the People's Republic of China.

COL Global Co Ltd is a digital cultural content industry group in China. Its core businesses include digital content production, copyright distribution, IP derivatives, and intellectual property protection.

Youdao Inc develops and markets software applications. It engages in developing technologies to provide learning content, applications, and solutions. The firm operates in three segments: Learning services, Smart devices, and Online marketing services. The majority of its revenue comes from the Learning services segment, which generates revenues from online courses, mainly including Youdao Premium Courses, NetEase Cloud Classroom, and China University MOOC. The learning products segment includes sales of smart devices such as the Youdao Dictionary Pen and the Youdao Pocket Translator. Geographically, all of its revenue is generated from the People's Republic of China.

Perdoceo Education Corp is an American for-profit education company that focuses on quality postsecondary education online to a diverse student population, along with campus-based and blended learning programs. The company's important segments include the American InterContinental University, the University of St. Augustine for Health Sciences, and Colorado Technical University. These universities provide undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral degree programs focusing on business, technology, management, and social services, with the majority of the students enrolled in programs offered fully online. The majority of the its revenue comes from the Colorado Technical University segment.

ManpowerGroup Inc provides workforce solutions and services, including recruitment and assessment, upskilling, reskilling, training and development, career management, outsourcing, and workforce consulting. The company leverages its trusted brands, industry knowledge, and AI-enabled assessments and offers an extensive portfolio of training and leadership development solutions. Its reportable segments are Staffing and Interim, Outcome-Based Solutions and Consulting, Permanent Recruitment, and Others, with Staffing and Interim generating the majority of revenue. It operates in the Americas, Southern Europe, Northern Europe, and APME. The company derives the maximum geographical revenue from the Southern European region.

Alef Education Holding Plc is an EdTech company that designs impactful learning experiences for students customized to different curriculums. The company operates in three segments: The Education solution segment, which provides customers the right of access to the Group’s learning platform. The Support and services segment includes ancillary services such as IT infrastructure setup and maintenance support and services, and the Financial investments segment pertains to the maintenance of the investment portfolio for returns based on market dynamics. The majority of its revenue is generated from the Education solution segment.

Insperity Inc is a company that provides a wide range of human resources and business solutions designed to help businesses improve their performance. Small and midsize enterprises are the company's primary target customers. Majority of the company's products are offered through the company's Workforce Optimization and Workforce Synchronization solutions, which comprise various human resource functions, such as payroll and employment administration, employee benefits and compensation, government compliance, performance management, training and development services, and human capital management. The company generates all of its revenue in the United States.

Advtech Ltd is a South Africa-based company engaged in education and training services. The company has three primary business segments, Schools, Tertiary, and Resourcing. The Schools segment offers pre-primary, primary, and secondary educations services. The Tertiary segment provides diploma, degree, and post-graduate services. The Resourcing segment provides permanent, temporary, and contract staffing solutions. These staffing positions are in several areas such as information technology, network finance, accounting and finance, engineering, and advertising.

Strategic Education Inc. is an education services company that provides access to high-quality education through campus-based and online post-secondary education offerings, as well as through programs to develop job-ready skills for high-demand markets. The company operates through wholly-owned subsidiaries Strayer University and Capella University, both accredited post-secondary institutions of higher education located in the United States, as well as Torrens University, an accredited post-secondary institution of higher education located in Australia. It provide employees with access to affordable and industry relevant training, certificate, and degree programs. The reportable segments of the company are U.S. Higher Education, Australia/New Zealand and Education Technology Services.

Offcn Education Technology Co Ltd is China's multi-category vocational education institution and civil servant entrance examination training company. The company serves the younger demographic including college students and university graduates throughout mainland China.

Meitec Group Holdings Inc formerly Meitec Corp offers staffing in the flexible labour market and engineering solutions for manufacturers. The company provides temporary engineering staffing, senior-workforce development, career development and career change support, global engineering solution outsourcing, prototyping and mold making, mounting and design of circuit boards, and information technology solutions. The core business segment is temporary staffing offering flexible staffing for engineering companies. Meitec operates in Japan.

Cengage Learning Holdings II Inc is an educational technology, content, and services company operating in the higher education, professional, K-12, English language teaching (ELT) and library spaces. It has five reportable segments on the basis of products and customers provided by each segment: Cengage Academic (U.S. Higher Education, International Higher Education, and Secondary Education), Cengage Work (ed2go and Infosec), Research, ELT, and Other (Australia K-12 and Milady). Research, ELT, and Other are reported together as a core business unit titled Cengage Select.

National Co for Learning and Education is a provider of educational and learning services based in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. It is engaged in ownership, establishment and management of private schools for general education (pre-university) in addition to investment in sport and entertainment along with sport clubs for school students. The company offers educational complexes that accommodate more than 15 thousand students, distributed in all stages from kindergarten, primary, intermediate and high school, according to the national curriculum and international curricula, with scientific laboratories on one hand, and entertainment facilities and sports clubs on the other hand. The company's business segments include Al-Rayan schools, Al-Rawabi schools, Al-Nuzha schools among others.

Coursera Inc is an online learning platform that connects learners, educators, and institutions with the goal of providing educational content that is affordable, accessible, and relevant. It combines content, data, and technology into a single, unified platform that is customizable and extensible to both individual learners and institutions. The company operates through two reporting segments: Consumer and Enterprise. The majority of revenue is generated from the Consumer segment. The consumer segment targets individual learners seeking to obtain hands-on learning, gain valuable job skills, receive professional-level certifications, and otherwise increase their knowledge to start or advance their careers.

Afya is a Brazilian provider of medical education and digital tools for physicians, listed on Nasdaq with a corporate base in Nova Lima. Its undergraduate business runs medical schools across more than 35 sites in Brazil, and it also sells continuing education, residency preparation courses and specialisation programmes. A practice-solutions segment offers clinical decision tools, practice management software and electronic prescriptions to doctors and patients. The group grew largely through acquisitions of medical schools and healthtech companies from 2018 onward and runs a corporate venture programme that invests in healthcare startups. Bertelsmann is its controlling shareholder, and the Esteves family founded the business. Its 2025 revenue was R$3,697.3 million, and in September 2026 it agreed to merge into YDUQS.

CognaEducacao SA is one of those private educational organizations in Brazil and around the world. The company's segment includes Kroton; Vasta and Saber. It generates the maximum of its revenue from the Kroton segment.

Hays PLC is a recruitment company, providing staffing solutions across various sectors, including information technology, construction, finance, education, and healthcare. The company generates revenue prominently through fees for placing candidates in permanent, temporary, and contract roles. It also offers workforce solutions such as recruitment process outsourcing, managed service programs, and advisory services. Hays operates its business in four regions: Germany, the United Kingdom & Ireland, Australia & New Zealand, and the Rest of the World. Its business model focuses on matching skilled professionals with employer needs through a network of recruitment consultants and digital platforms, without owning physical labor assets.

Universal Technical Institute Inc is an educational institution. It provides undergraduate degree, as well as certificate programs for technicians in the automotive, diesel, collision repair, motorcycle and marine fields. The company's reportable segment which includes Universal Technical Institute (UTI) and Concorde Career Colleges, Corporate. Majority of the revenue is generated from UTI segment which provides different kinds of degree and non-degree transportation and skilled trades technical training programs under brands such as Universal Technical Institute, Motorcycle Mechanics Institute, Marine Mechanics Institute and others. It also provides dealer technician training or instructor staffing services to manufacturers.

JAC Recruitment Co Ltd provide appropriate and attentive consultation services to both companies seeking talent and candidates who wish to change jobs. Its recruitment services include JAC Recruitment, JAC Digital, JAC Executive, JAC International, JAC Career, VantagePoint, JAC Interim Professional Solutions, JAC RPO, and CareerCross.

AcadeMedia AB is an education services provider in Northern Europe, operating preschools, compulsory schools, and upper secondary schools in Sweden and Norway, as well as adult education units in Sweden. The company’s operating segments include Preschool and International Operations, Compulsory School, Upper Secondary School, and Adult Education. It generates the majority of its revenue from the Preschool and International segment. Geographically, the company operates in Sweden, Finland, Norway, Germany, the Netherlands, the UK, and Poland, deriving the majority of its revenue from Sweden.

Open Up Group Inc provides human resource services and outsourcing or contracting services for manufacturing companies in Japan and overseas. The business segments of the company include: Mechatronics/IT field: it includes workers dispatching, contracting, consignment business such as development design engineers. Construction area segment includes construction management engineer business / CAD operator dispatch business for customers in construction industry. Manufacturing Area segment includes manufacturing site contracting and dispatch business for customers in manufacturing industry Temporary staffing, outsourcing and referral business for technology and manufacturing fields.

FESCO Group Co Ltd is engaged in the provision of human resources services, including personnel management services, compensation and welfare services, business outsourcing services, recruitment and flexible employment services and others.

HumanSoft Holding Co KSCP is Kuwait based company. The company is engaged, along with its subsidiaries, in establishing and managing private universities and colleges, providing computer education, language training, executive courses, and electronic commerce and media. The company is organized in business segments of Higher Education and Others. The company earns the majority of revenue from the Higher education segment.

Emirates Driving Co PJSC is the driver's training and road safety institute in Abu Dhabi. The company and its subsidiaries are engaged in the management and development of motor vehicle driving training and services. The company offers these services to the national and expatriates living in the country. The firm generates its revenue from training and testing services.

Timee Inc is engaged in operating Timee, on-demand job platform.

McMillan Shakespeare is a provider of salary packaging, novated leasing, disability plan management and support co-ordination, and fleet management services. It actively works to cross-sell its products to clients, for example, selling its salary packaging services to its fleet management customers in Australia and New Zealand. McMillan dominates Australia’s salary packaging market together with Smartgroup (also covered by Morningstar), and is also a large provider of novated leasing services by volumes—together with Smartgroup and SG Fleet. The group has three operating segments: group remuneration services, asset management services, and plan and support services. Most of the group’s revenue is generated from the group remuneration services segment.

Kforce Inc is a solutions firm specializing in technology, finance, accounting, and other professional staffing services. The company operates two business segments: the Technology segment, which provides talent solutions with candidates skilled in areas including systems/applications architecture and development, data management and analytics, business and artificial intelligence, machine learning, project and program management, and network architecture and security. The FA segment offers consultants in traditional finance and accounting roles such as finance, planning and analysis; business intelligence analysis; general accounting; transactional accounting, business and cost analysis; and taxation and treasury. The majority of revenue is earned through the Technology segment.

UT Group Co Ltd is engaged in worker dispatch and outsourcing of permanent employees in manufacturing, design, and development, construction, and other sectors. The firm operates in three segments: Manufacturing Business, Solution Business, and Engineering Business.