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| Kendall College sold to Laureate Inc. (Crain's) |
| Released: 7/17/2008 |
From Crain's Chicago Business
Kendall College sold to Baltimore education firm
By: Lorene Yue July 16, 2008
(Crain’s) — Kendall College has been acquired by Laureate Education Inc., a Baltimore-based for-profit education company that finally exercised its long-term option to buy the Chicago school.
Laureate Education, a privately held company, announced the transaction on Wednesday. Terms of the deal, which closed July 10, were not disclosed.
Laureate Education has had its eye on Kendall College since 2004, when it obtained a two-year option to buy the Chicago-based school. That option was extended to March 31, 2008 to give Kendall College time to become a more attractive acquisition, said a spokeswoman for Laureate.
“We were looking from an enrollment point-of-view and Kendall has seen sustained growth,” she said. “It was the right time now to pull them into our network.”
Laureate obtained the option to buy Kendall College after providing the Chicago school with money for the construction of its new 3.3-acre campus near Halsted Street and Chicago Avenue. Kendall moved to Chicago from Evanston in 2005 and in recent months began aggressively marketing the school and its real estate.
Related story:Kendall trying again to sell Goose Island campus
Kendall College helps Laureate establish a campus-based school network in the United States. Laureate, which also bought a San Diego-Calif-based architecture school on Wednesday, operates campus-based institutions in more than a dozen countries in Europe, South America and Asia. It has had an online presence in the United States, but never a physical campus.
“Kendall College and its top-ranked culinary school solidify (Laureate’s) reputation as a global leader in hospitality education,” Paula Singer, president and CEO of Laureate’s online and U.S.-based institutions, said in a statement.
Kendall College is best known for its School of Culinary Arts, which has produced graduates such as Bill Kim of Le Lan and Shawn McClain of Spring and Green Zebra. The institution also offers degrees in business and early childhood education.
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