领英15亿美元收购Lynda.com

LinkedIn is to acquire the online learning business for about $1.5bn, as the social network expands offerings for its audience of professional users.

领英(LinkedIn)将斥资约15亿美元，收购在线学习网站，试图以此向由职业用户组成的受众群提供更多服务。

, a California-based company, has created hundreds of thousands of video tutorials in multiple languages, helping people to learn “software, technology, creative and business skills to achieve personal and professional goals”. Users pay a subscription of up to $375 a year to gain access to online courses that have been created by more than 1,000 authors.

总部驻美国加利福尼亚州，以多种语言制作了数以十万计的视频教学指导资料，帮助人们学习“软件、科技、创造力及商业方面的技能，以实现个人目标及专业目标”。用户每年支付最高375美元的注册费，就能访问由逾千名作者制作的在线课程。

Jeff Weiner, chief executive of LinkedIn, said the companies “are highly aligned . . . both companies seek to help professionals be better at what they do”.

领英首席执行官杰夫•韦纳(Jeff Weiner)表示，两家公司“具有极大的合作空间……它们都试图帮助职场人士在各自的领域提升自己”。

He said the companies “believe strongly that the growing skills gap is one of the biggest challenges to the future of the global economy”.

他说，两家公司“坚信，人们的技能与需求间不断加大的差距，是未来全球经济面临的最大挑战之一”。

Lynda’s courses will be integrated with the LinkedIn site. For example, a jobseeker might be able to use the site to discover what skills are needed for the open vacancies in his or her city, and be prompted to take a relevant course.

合并后，Lynda网站的课程将被整合进领英网站。比如，求职者或许能通过领英，了解所在城市的空缺职位需要什么技能，并马上学习相关课程。

Though was founded in 1995 as a small school in Pasadena, California, and later a learn-by-video business, the company secured the vast majority of its nearly $290m of investment in the past two years.

网站于1995年创立于加州帕萨迪纳市，最初只是个规模很小的学校，后来发展成视频教学企业。尽管起步时并不起眼，但它已获得2.9亿美元投资，绝大部分是在过去两年中获得的。

Existing investors include Silicon Valley venture capital groups Accel Partners and Meritech Capital Partners, as well as US private equity groups TPG and Spectrum Equity.

该公司现有投资者包括硅谷风险投资集团阿塞尔伙伴公司(Accel Partners)和美瑞泰科资本合伙公司(Meritech Capital Partners)，以及美国私募股权集团TPG和光谱投资(Spectrum Equity)。

Lynda Weiman, co-founder and executive chair of , said all of LinkedIn’s 350m members could potentially benefit from the “self-paced study of new skills” that her business offers.

网站共同创始人兼执行董事长林达•韦曼(Lynda Weiman)表示，领英的3.5亿用户都有机会从提供的“自主学习新技能”的服务中受益。

“The skills gap is one of the leading social issues of our time — technology changes fast and people need to keep their skills up to date,” she said in a blogpost.

她在一篇博客文章中表示：“在我们这个时代，技能欠缺是首当其冲的社会问题之一——科技变化太快，人们需要及时更新他们的技能。”

“We have a shared vision of connecting relevant knowledge to those in need of new or stronger skills.”

“我们两家公司都有同样的愿景，要在重要的知识和那些需要新技能或更强技能的人群间搭建桥梁。”

’s revenue last year was about $150m, with two-thirds coming from individual subscriptions and one-third from enterprise customers. The company’s compound annual growth rate has been about 40 per cent since 2001 and it has more than 500 employees worldwide.

去年，网站的营收约为1.5亿美元，其中三分之二来自个人注册用户，三分之一来自企业客户。自2001年以来，该公司复合年增长率约40%，目前在全球拥有逾500名员工。

More than 5m licences have been sold to enterprise and professional users with customers including more than half of the Fortune 50, all of the US military and all of the Ivy League colleges.

该网站已向企业用户和专业用户出售了逾500万份使用许可证，其中包括逾半数的《财富》(Fortune)杂志50强企业、美国全部军事院校和全部常青藤院校。

LinkedIn will pay through a combination of about 52 per cent cash and 48 per cent stock. The acquisition is expected to close in the second quarter.

领英将通过现金和换股方式完成这一收购，其中现金占52%，股票占48%。收购预计在今年第二季度完成。

The $1.5bn acquisition is LinkedIn’s largest. Its second-largest deal was the $175m acquisition of Bizo, a business to business marketing platform last year, and $120m for job-matching site Bright in February 2014.

这笔规模15亿美元的交易是领英历史上最大规模的收购交易。该公司第二大并购交易则是去年收购B2B市场平台Bizo的交易，规模为1.75亿美元。此外，该公司还曾在2014年2月斥资1.2亿美元收购求职网站Bright。