Higher One Buys CASHNet
Lately, Lightyear Capital has been making headlines across the financial services M&A front.
November 20, 2009
Higher One, a privately-held, Connecticut-based financial services firm concentrating on higher education, will buy CASHNet, a payment management service for universities.
The deal is the first add-on for Higher One since its investment from Lightyear Capital in 2008. Lightyear Capital became Higher One’s largest shareholder, taking a significant minority stake, as part of a leveraged recapitalization through which the company bought back shares from existing investors.
In the time since Lightyear’s investment, Higher One has nearly doubled the number of colleges and universities it serves from 185 to about 350; it more than doubled in the last 12 months the number of students it serves, to 3.5 million. CASHNet serves more than 300 universities, as well.
Higher bought, in April 2008, prior to Lightyear’s investment, Educard, an affiliate of software developer Evisions, and established a collaboration with the software developer.
Higher One was founded in 2000; calls seeking comment were not returned by press time.
Lightyear’s 2009 deal, in which it bought three of ING Advisors Network’s five financial advisors, was its first of the year, coming earlier this month.
At a time when the Obama administration is pushing for more higher education for Americans, M&A in the space has picked up.
One recent example of this is Sterling Capital Partners, which purchased assets of two multimedia education companies, Educational Resources Inc. and Sunburst Technology Corporation, earlier this month.
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