Press Release
July 14, 2015

Goodwin Advises Partners Group in Acquisition of Knowledge Universe’s Early Childhood Education Business in the U.S.

A team of Goodwin Procter attorneys advised private equity client Partners Group on its announced acquisition of Knowledge Universe’s early childhood education business in the United States. Knowledge Universe is the parent company of KinderCare Learning Centers, Children’s Creative Learning Centers (CCLC) and Champions. KinderCare includes 1,400 centers in 38 states, CCLC operates approximately 100 centers on behalf of various corporate, government and university clients, and Champions runs 400 programs in partnership with schools across the country. Terms of the transaction, which is expected to close later in 2015, were not disclosed.

Partners Group is a global private markets investment management firm with over EUR 37 billion (more than USD 45 billion) in investment programs under management in private equity, private real estate, private infrastructure and private debt. With over 750 employees, Partners Group is headquartered in Zug, Switzerland and has offices in San Francisco, Houston, New York, São Paulo, London, Guernsey, Paris, Luxembourg, Milan, Munich, Dubai, Mumbai, Singapore, Shanghai, Seoul, Tokyo and Sydney. Partners is listed on the SIX Swiss Exchange (symbol: PGHN).

Knowledge Universe (KUE LLC) believes that the power of education changes lives. Every day more than 169,000 children take their first steps, learn to read and prepare for school through its early childhood and school-age programs. The Knowledge Universe Education LLC family of companies includes KinderCare® Learning Centers, CCLC®, and Champions®, where more than 30,000 people help children discover books, music, science, cooking, and language in a nurturing and safe environment.

Earlier this year, Goodwin advised Partners Group in its $1.1 billion acquisition of Dynacast.

The Goodwin team advising Partners Group was led by John LeClaire and included partners Laura Rupenian, Howard Cubell, Al Solecki, Kerri Garipoli, Jeffrey Simes, Joel Lehrer and James Matarese.

For more information, please read the Partners Group press release.