The Great Courses' Challenge
Chantilly, Virginia-based The Great Courses was founded in 1990, and provides courses and lecture series taught by the country's best professors via DVD, audio CD and other formats. By igniting in its customers a passion for lifelong learning, The Great Courses has experienced rapid growth: The company currently offers more than 390 courses, spanning over 5,600 hours of content across ten subject categories.
In 2006, The Great Courses was purchased by Brentwood Associates, a consumer-focused private equity investment firm. Management recognized that The Great Courses needed additional financing to support its on-going expansion, but also sought a way to bring courses to market faster and for a lower cost. One key area of focus was The Great Courses' production process, which was designed around audio based products and limited the company’s ability to incorporate the latest visual technology.
GE Capital's strategy
When, in March of 2011, The Great Courses was seeking a financing partner for a $170 million dividend recapitalization, GE Capital offered a solution that included not just financing, but also consultation and support.
While the GE Capital sponsor finance team sought an optimal financing solution, GE Capital's rich experience working with technology and media companies allowed it to offer real-time insight into industry best practices. The Access GE team of industry specialists brought to bear on The Great Courses' processes the robust legacy of GE in operational management.
In addition to an effective financing solution, GE Capital provided operations professionals, tools and methods that helped The Great Courses optimize its production process and gain the efficiencies it needed to keep up with the company's rapid growth.
The results
The Great Courses has since expanded its direct marketing efforts, made significant investments in branding and e-commerce, and continued to enhance the visual richness and production quality of its content library. The company also recently launched its new digital distribution platform for content delivery, which currently offers digital downloads and will offer streaming video in the near future.
Despite a challenging macroeconomic environment, The Great Courses has continued its impressive financial performance. This year, the company is on track to more than triple its revenue and profitability since the Brentwood Associates acquisition.
“We were looking for ways to make our video production process more efficient. GE Capital offered to share their operational expertise. The team came in and learned about our business, and led a brainstorming session. Thanks to the improvements GE Capital helped introduce, we estimate a benefit of $10M dollars over the next 10 years.”
In Search of Smarter Liquidity
Middle Market Indicator Q4 2012
