Wealthy new company Education Technology LLC, formed by Oracle Corp chairman Larry Ellison and financier Michael Milken (CI No 2,874), has been looking for companies to invest in that will help fill the gap between the kind of information technology education school that leavers receive and the kind of skills companies actually want. Its eye has fallen first on a UK company, Eastham-based CRT Group Plc, and last week it injected 109m British pounds in cash, doubling the company’s net assets to around 120m pounds, with 100m pounds in cash. Education Technology, through its subsidiary ET Training LLC, wanted an investment with strong brands: CRT has Pitman Training in personal training, Link Training on the corporate side, and Software Personnel Plc in recruitment. It also has the Easy Tutor brand of multimedia training CD-ROMs. Larry Ellison will be an active board member (the first board appointment he’s taken outside of Oracle itself), as will Tom Kalinski, Education Technology’s president, who becomes executive deputy chairman. CRT wanted both the cash for aggressive expansion in what is currently a fragmented market, and an injection of experience. Education Technology, registered in Delaware, is a private company capitalized at $300m in January.
