GEDH

Leading group of higher education schools in communication, digital and creative studies

Founded in 1961, GEDH is an independent player in the private higher education sector, operating five reference schools – EFAP (Communication), ICART (Art and Culture Management), EFJ (Journalism), BRASSART (Digital Creation) and CESINE (Design, Marketing and Communication) – across over 20 campuses in France and abroad.

Benefitting from a strong network of international partners from the corporate and academic world, GEDH developed a unique pedagogy focused on professional exposure and work experience. At the time of exiting, the campuses had around 7,000 students and 30,000 alumni throughout the world.

IK Partners acquired a stake in GEDH from Quilvest Capital Partners and Amin Khiari, Chairman of GEDH in February 2020. In May 2021 Quilvest Capital Partners together with IK Partners sold their respective stakes in GEDH to Five Arrows Principal Investments (“FAPI”) alongside the management team who reinvested.

Our Value Creation Strategy

During our ownership, we worked alongside the management team to:

• Sustain student enrolment through continued investment into sales, marketing and partnerships;
• Drive organic growth through the extension of program offering and geographies;
• Unlock synergies from recently acquired schools; and
• Continue to drive market consolidation through selected add-ons and transformative acquisitions.