Charterhouse offloads The Times educational supplement in £400m deal
TSL Education, publisher of The Times educational supplement, has been sold to TPG Capital by Charterhouse in a £400m deal.
TPG will be the third private equity owner of the publisher in less than a decade when the sale is due to completed in the third quarter with Charterhouse expected to make a small loss from the deal.
It comes as Charterhouse seeks to reposition itself away from the dwindling print circulation of the supplement, which dropped four per cent last year to reach 54,411 copies.
The weekly stand-alone magazine has been published since 1910, generating a steady income from teacher recruitment ads. According to Companies House this generated a pre-tax profit of £24.2m in the year to August 2012, on a turnover of £73.8m.
Karl Peterson, managing partner of TPG Capital, said the TSL had “done an outstanding job in transitioning the business to become the leading site for teachers both online and in print while gaining a sizeable and growing audience across the globe.”
He added: “TPG’s global presence and extensive online experience fit well with the company’s ambitions and we anticipate accelerating growth through further investments in TSL’s digital capabilities.”