LinkedIn Buying Lynda.com for $1.5 Billion
'Most' Lynda.com Employees Expected to Join LinkedIn
LinkedIn announced this morning that it is buying Carpinteria-based Lynda.com for $1.5 billion.
“This is such an exciting moment in the 20-year history of Lynda.com, and I couldn’t imagine a better pairing than Lynda.com and LinkedIn,” said Lynda.com cofounder and chair Lynda Weinman in a prepared statement. Most members of the Lynda.com team are expected to join LinkedIn, the statement reads.
The $1.5 billion deal will be in approximately 52 percent cash and 48 percent stock and is expected close in the second quarter of 2015.
“The mission of LinkedIn and the mission of Lynda.com are highly aligned. Both companies seek to help professionals be better at what they do,” said Jeff Weiner, CEO of LinkedIn. “Lynda.com’s extensive library of premium video content helps empower people to develop the skills needed to accelerate their careers. When integrated with the hundreds of millions of members and millions of jobs on LinkedIn, Lynda.com can change the way in which people connect to opportunity.”
With more than 300 million members, LinkedIn is the world’s largest online professional network; and with more than four million members, 267,000 video tutorials, and 6,300 courses, Lynda.com is a leading online learning company that’s grown leaps and bounds since Weinman and her husband, Bruce Heavin, founded it in Carpinteria in 1995. Read The Santa Barbara Indpendent‘s profile of the South Coast company here.
In recent years, Lynda.com announced a number of its own acquisitions and outside investments. It also laid off dozens of its employees to “eliminate corporate operations redundancy” after an internal reorganization.
LinkedIn has reported revenue growth of nearly 50 percent in each of the last three quarters, helped by rapid expansion in international markets such as China, reports Reuters. The Lynda.com deal marks LinkedIn’s largest in its 12-year history.
LinkedIn generated $2.2 billion in sales last year, reports The New York Times. Lynda.com made more than $150 million in revenue last year and has turned a profit since 1997.
