News in brief

n Brazilian education company Ser Educacional is considering a potential acquisition of assets owned by Laureate Education in Brazil, Reuters has reported.

Ser Educational stated: “The company is always attentive and constantly evaluating opportunities for strategic operations to create value for its shareholders and stakeholders in general,” adding that no deal has been signed yet.

n Vasta Platform intends to raise $306 million from the sale of its Class A common stock in an IPO, The Street has reported.

Sao Paulo-based Vasta Platform provides education content and administrative technology solutions to K12 partner schools in Brazil.

Vasta has received at least $1.2 billion from investors including Cogna Educacao, the large private education company in Brazil.

n Boxlight Corporation, which provides interactive technology solutions for the global education market, has announced the pricing of its underwritten public offering of 15 million shares of its common stock at a public offering price of $2 per share.

The gross proceeds from the public offering will be approximately $30 million, before deducting underwriting discounts and commissions and estimated offering expenses.

Maxim Group is acting as sole book-running manager and National Securities Corporation is acting as a co-manager for the offering.

Boxlight also has granted to the underwriter a 45-day option to purchase up to an additional 2,250,000 shares of common stock, at the public offering price less discounts and commissions.

Boxlight Corporation is headquartered in Lawrenceville, Georgia.

n The UK’s largest private pension fund, the Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS), has more than doubled its deficit to nearly £13 billion at a time when 13 higher education institutions are at risk of collapse.

The USS, which has more than 400,000 members, reported that a gap in funding had widened to £12.9 billion at the end of March from £5.4 billion a year prior.

This largely reflects a fall in interest rates, which are designed to stimulate global economies ravaged by the Covid-19 pandemic but have an inflationary effect on the cost of defined benefit pension pledges.

“The material reduction in the funding ratio reflects reductions in interest rates over the year and the devastating impact of coronavirus on global markets in the final quarter,” said the annual report.

It was published three weeks after the Institute for Fiscal Studies, a prominent think-tank, produced a report which found that 13 unnamed universities in the UK were at risk of going bankrupt due to Covid-19.

During the 12-month period, the USS’s liabilities – costs of meeting pension provisions – jumped to £79.4 billion from £72.8 billion.

The USS, which owns a stake in London-based private school group Dukes Education, takes an active approach to investing, meaning it selects investment individually rather than injecting capital into instruments like exchange-traded funds, which pool stocks.

The USS places 60% of its funds in equities, 32.5% in fixed income products, 7.5% in property, and 10% in liability-driven investments.

With total assets of £67 billion, the USS is the principal pension scheme for universities and other higher education institutions in the UK.

The USS said it would end investments in tobacco, coal and controversial weapons as it moved to build a more ethically orientated portfolio.

n London-based Moonbug Entertainment has acquired two of the world’s most successful children’s programmes.

CoComelon, a YouTube channel with over 3.5 billion average monthly views help children constructively interact with daily routines, making parents’ lives easier. Blippi is a liveaction programme with, inspiring and accessible educational content, successful toy line, and live shows in the US – and more than half a billion average monthly views.

Renè Rechtman, Moonbug cofounder and chief executive, said: “It is a tremendous accomplishment to acquire two of the world’s most loved children’s shows. We are excited to support their continued growth and expand the brands into global entertainment franchises. It is a transformational step for our business.”