Phoenix Education Partners (PXED), the private equity-backed parent of the University of Phoenix, an online college, priced its IPO at $32.00 – the mid-point of its range – and sold 4.25 million shares – the number in the prospectus – to raise $136 million on Wednesday night, Oct. 8, 2025. At pricing, the company had a market cap of about $1.14 billion.
Shares of Phoenix Education Partners jumped in their New York Stock Exchange debut – opening at $38.00 – up $6.00 from their IPO price – at midday today – Thursday, Oct. 9, 2025.
Phoenix Education Partners‘ stock (PXED) closed at $39.02 – up $7.02 for a gain of 21.94 percent from its $32.00 IPO price – in its first day of NYSE trading.
Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and BMO Capital Markets are leading the joint book-runners’ team, which includes Jefferies, Apollo Global and Truist Securities.
The selling stockholders – the private equity firms Apollo Global Management and Vistria Group – offered all of the stock in the IPO. The company will not receive any proceeds from the IPO.
Apollo Education Group, the predecessor of Phoenix Education Partners, was taken private in 2017 by funds affiliated with Apollo and Vistria in a deal valued at $1.1 billion, according to Bloomberg.
Profits, Dividend Plans & PE
The word on the Street is that Phoenix Education Partners’ deal attracted some institutional interest in spite of its small size. The company is profitable. And it plans to pay a quarterly dividend of about 84 cents per share per year, starting with the next quarter, according to the prospectus.
The IPO marks the company’s plan to return to life as a publicly traded entity.
Apollo Global Management and Vistria Group – the PE firms that were also the selling stockholders – are still in charge of the company. Here are their stakes in the company, according to the prospectus:
- Apollo Global Management owns 71 percent of Phoenix Education Partners after the IPO – down from 81 percent before the deal.
- Vistria Group owns 14 percent of Phoenix Education Partners after the IPO – down from 16 percent before the deal.
Phoenix Education Partners takes its name from the Arizona city that it calls home. The company’s flagship – the online University of Phoenix – offers bachelor’s and master’s degree programs to working adults – and 71 percent are women, the prospectus said. The average age is 37. The University currently offers 72 degree-granting and 33 non-degree certificate programs across a wide range of disciplines.
The company’s Average Total Degreed Enrollment increased to 82,700 during the first nine months of fiscal year 2025 – up from 78,900 for all of fiscal year 2024, which ran from Sept. 1, 2023, through Aug. 31, 2024, according to the prospectus.
Phoenix Education Partners launched the IPO in September. In June, it had walked away from a 2023 deal to sell the school to the University of Idaho for $550 million, Bloomberg reported.
The company’s growth strategy is leaning in toward its “business-to-business” or “B2B” enrollment – a group that includes students who enroll through employer-provided programs.
Online higher education is a profitable business, judging from Phoenix Education Partners’ prospectus: The company reported net income of $115 million on revenue of $950 million for the fiscal year that began on Sept. 1, 2023, and ended on Aug. 31, 2024.
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