Providing specialist due diligence advice
We delivered specialist curriculum and compliance due diligence for a private equity client by interrogating data, reviewing quality arrangements, assessing operating models, and advising on investability alongside a big-four commercial review.
We were engaged by a European private equity client to assess the quality of curriculum and compliance arrangements in a large apprenticeship training provider organisation which they were proposing to acquire.
Our advice ran alongside a big four firm’s conventional, commercial due diligence which our client rightly identified would likely fail to reflect a nuanced, granular, understanding of best practice, quality, risk and compliance in the market.
To provide our client with insightful, evidenced, and commercially astute advice, we:
- Interrogated data quality and management arrangements with reference to funding partner and regulators’ expectations, and wider best practice – identifying issues, risks, and opportunity for improvement post-acquisition.
- Interrogated internal and publicly available learner and performance data – identifying trends, issues, and risks with respect to curriculum quality and performance, which we then followed up through qualitative exploration of curriculum management / delivery arrangements.
- Conducted a review of curriculum quality, management, and improvement arrangements with reference to Ofsted expectations and grade descriptors – giving our client the strongest possible sense of curriculum quality through a necessarily remote exercise.
- Conducted an extensive review of the target organisation’s operating and resource models, with reference to our own experience of ‘what works and industry best practice – from which we identified issues, risks and themes for further interrogation.
- Reviewed the organisation’s policy, processes and reporting arrangements with respect to the safeguarding of young people and vulnerable adults – providing our client with evidenced confidence that the target organisation was compliant with legal and regulatory expectations.
- Provided our client with consolidated advice on curriculum and compliance arrangements in the target organisation – including our net view on whether the business was investable. We also provided critical advice and challenge on the core due diligence exercise.
Given our – and their other professional advisors’ advice – our client acquired the target business in 2020. Since then, the business has continued to grow at and beyond the forecast rate; our client successfully exited – making a healthy return on their investment.
