The media company will sell Naviance and Intersect to PowerSchool, while the Starfish platform will be sold to EAB

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Headquarters of Daily Mail and General Trust at the Northcliffe House in London. (Credit: Daily Mail and General Trust Plc)

Daily Mail and General Trust (DMGT), which owns the British newspaper Daily Mail, has agreed to divest its Hobsons EdTech business in two separate deals for a total sum of around $410m.

In the first deal, the media company will sell Hobsons’ Naviance and Intersect businesses to PowerSchool for around $320m.

PowerSchool is a US-based provider of K-12 education technology solutions.

Naviance is a college and career readiness software platform. On the other hand, Intersect is an admissions solution that helps students on the Naviance platform to find their appropriate higher education prospects.

PowerSchool CEO Hardeep Gulati said: “PowerSchool’s acquisition of Naviance and Intersect is a continuation of our commitment and core mission to provide unified technology that helps every student succeed no matter where they’re from and where they’re going.

“After high school, every student has their own unique preferences, path, and aspirations for education, career, and life choices.

“By bringing these two solutions into PowerSchool’s unified portfolio, we are focusing on providing tools and insights that can help simplify, guide, and provide all the options they need to help with that journey.”

The other deal that Daily Mail and General Trust has signed is for divesting Starfish, which is the higher education student retention and success platform of Hobsons. The business is being sold to EAB, a US-based education company, for about $90m.

EAB said that the addition of Starfish will improve how it supports students inside and outside the classroom, apart from enriching its network of college and university partners.

Daily Mail and General Trust CEO Paul Zwillenberg said: “These two transactions mark another major milestone in DMGT’s transformation and are a clear demonstration of the benefits of our strategy.

“Hobsons was restructured in 2017 to focus on high-growth opportunities in Student Success. The combination of operational execution and organic investment drove a significant increase in capital value.”

Zwillenberg said that the divestitures will enhance the focus of the media company’s portfolio, which has been trimmed down from 10 sectors in 2016 to four following the two deals.

The closing of the deals is subject to the customary closing conditions.