Blackboard Reaches Deal to Sell Its Payments and Transaction Tools

TRANSACTION IMMINENT: Blackboard has reached a deal to sell its Transact division, which includes a suite of campus ID, payments, attendance and event management services used in higher-ed institutions. The buyer will be private equity firm Reverence Capital Partners.

Financial terms were not disclosed, although Bloomberg sources say the deal could be worth around $720 million. The deal is expected to close in the second quarter of 2019.

Over the years, Blackboard has acquired several companies, including Higher One and Sequoia Retail Systems, whose services have been rolled into the Transact suite of products. (The Higher One acquisition, which included Cashnet, a billing and payment systems, cost $260 million.)

On the company’s blog, Blackboard CEO Bill Bauhaus described the deal as “an opportunity to further simplify our business and focus our resources.” In other words, its Transact portfolio of student ID management payment processing tools no longer fit within the company’s decision to focus on products that more directly support the instructional experience, such as Blackboard Learn, its learning management system. Bauhaus also alluded in the post to the company’s increasing priority on refining its data and analytics services.