Dive Brief:

• McGraw-Hill Education is planning an IPO, according to anonymous sources who spoke with Reuters.
• The public offering could potentially happen in Q4, and Apollo Global Management, which owns the company, is said to be in talks with investment banks.
• The publisher could be valued around $5 billion including debt when it goes public, Reuters reports, also noting that Apollo has increased McGraw-Hill Education's value through higher profits and less-costly digital products.

Dive Insight:

McGraw-Hill Education was acquired by Apollo for $2.4 billion in 2013 and is one of the world's largest K-12 and higher ed textbook publishers. Of particular interest regarding the potential IPO, waiting until Q4 would see the move following the most lucrative time of the year for the company: the back to school season. Additionally, Reuters adds that fellow ed publisher Houghton Mifflin Harcourt's shares have climbed 60% since its post-bankruptcy IPO in November 2013.