Dive Brief:

• The owner of the University of Phoenix may be in the final weeks of sale negotiations following tough years of stricter regulation, falling enrollments, and tanking share prices, prompting a surge of interest from investors.
• The Wall Street Journal reports private-equity firm Apollo Global Management is in “advanced talks” to buy the education company in a deal that could be worth $1 billion.
• While Apollo had reportedly been discussing the sale with a number of private equity firms since last year, The Wall Street Journal’s source says the unaffiliated though similarly named Apollo Global Management is the only company still in the running.

Dive Insight:

Apollo Education stocks dropped during normal trading after the company posted larger-than-expected losses during the fiscal quarter ending Nov. 30. Revenue fell 18%. Even the prospect of a sale seemed to be outweighed by the results.

But stocks shot up again after The Wall Street Journal reported the $1 billion deal with Apollo Global Management, which of course is not yet final and could still fall through.

The for-profit education company expects revenues from a sale could help expand its internal initiatives and complete a transformation of the University of Phoenix, which began with cuts to associate degree programs and the introduction of admission requirements. The company, though far from its peak in 2010, is still profitable and attempting a controlled scale-back in the United States while pursuing international opportunities more aggressively.