Eureka Equity Partners (“Eureka”) today announced it completed a dividend recapitalization of West Academic Publishing (“West Academic”), the leading provider of higher education learning materials for the law school market.
Headquartered in St. Paul, MN, West Academic provides legal textbooks, casebooks, study guides and other course-related materials in both print and digital media formats for law school faculty and students in the United States. West Academic provides its products under the West Academic Publishing, Foundation Press and Gilbert imprints. Eureka, in partnership with senior management, formed West Academic to acquire the Law School Publishing business of Thomson Reuters in February 2013.
“We are very pleased to provide this strong return to our investors and management partners as a byproduct of the collaborative effort we have made with West Academic’s tremendous team to build on the company’s leadership position in bringing value and innovation to the legal education market,” said Chris Hanssens, Managing Partner of Eureka and a Director of West Academic. “Since our acquisition, CEO Chris Parton has led the growth of the business from 50 to 82 people today, with a focus on driving growth in digital products and advanced learning materials integral to the evolution of the legal education market and to our relationships with our authors, law schools and their students.”
“Eureka’s consistent commitment to the long-term strategy and success of the business has helped us secure our market leadership position with the launch of innovative products such as CasebookPlus,” said Chris Parton, CEO of West Academic. “We are thrilled with our early success as an independent business and are very excited to continue to work with Eureka to expand our product and service leadership in the law school higher education market.”