Apollo Group makes India foray with HT Media JV

Joint venture will launch a network of learning centres in India to offer business-related courses: Rauzon.

Apollo Group Inc,the largest for-profit college in the United States,will enter the lucrative Indian education market by partnering with HT Media Ltd to offer programs targeting the corporate space.

Apollo,through its subsidiary Apollo Global,will operate a start-up,50:50 joint venture with newspaper publisher HT Media.

The joint venture will launch a network of learning centres in India to offer business-related courses,Apollo spokesman Ryan Rauzon said.

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The venture,which would also offer online courses,is targeted at traditional students and working adults,and is tentatively scheduled for a 2013 launch,Rauzon said.

The centres in India would most likely not carry Apollo’s flagship University of Phoenix brand name,he said.

Financial terms of the joint venture were not disclosed.

India has a roughly $85 billion education sector,more than half of which is funded privately in a country where state schooling is often so bad that most families who can afford it send their children to private school.

We see significant education needs in India and we will invest accordingly,Rauzon said.

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In a separate statement,New Delhi-based HT Media said the joint venture was intended to address the need for quality educational services and education-employment mismatch in India.

HT Media publishes the Hindustan Times,Hindustan and Mint newspapers and operates four radio stations. It entered the education space in 2010 with the launch of tuition centres called Studymate.

Apollo Global is a joint venture between Apollo Group and private equity firm Carlyle.

Shares of Apollo were up slightly to $49.98 on Monday on Nasdaq. HT Media shares closed up 1.13 per cent at 125 rupees on the National Stock Exchange.