Byju’s in advanced talks to sell Epic for $400 million
BENGALURU: Edtech company Byju’s is in advanced talks to sell its US-based digital reading platform Epic for about $400 million. According to sources, the edtech firm will close the sale in another two weeks or at least by the end of this month, and that at least four buyers including Joffre Capital and Duolingo have expressed interest in buying Epic.
Byju’s, which is grappling with multiple challenges, is selling Epic to repay the loan amount. In September, this newspaper reported that the edtech company will repay the $1.2 billion term loan B by selling Great Learning and Epic, which were acquired in 2021.
Sources added these two companies will fetch Byju’s nearly $1 billion. Byju’s acquired US-based reading platform Epic for $500 million and Great Learning, a professional learning platform, for about $600 million.The edtech company and lenders recently decided to postpone the disagreement in US courts. Earlier in June, the company had filed a complaint in the New York Supreme Court to challenge the acceleration of the $1.2 billion TLB (the firm secured this loan in November 2021). It had skipped paying $40 million interest.
On Saturday, the company filed its FY22 financials and reported an EBITDA loss of the core business to Rs 2,253 crore y-o-y in FY22, about 6% lower than `2,406 crore loss it posted in the previous year. The core business of Think & Learn - Byju’s, excluding all acquisitions, reported a 2.3x growth to reach a total income of Rs 3,569 crore from Rs 1,552 crore in the previous year.
“The takeaways from a uniquely belligerent year, which included nine acquisitions, are life- long learnings,” founder and group chief executive officer Byju Raveendran had said. It has more than 150 million registered learners globally with a presence in 120 countries.