LinkedIn Buys Online Educator Lynda.com In $1.5B Deal

LinkedIn has been looking at Lynda.com’s profile. And on Thursday the Silicon Valley online professional networking site announced it’s buying the southern California provider of digital skills-training videos for $1.5 billion. The companies said in a joint statement Thursday that the acquisition will be completed by the end of June.

“Both companies seek to help professionals be better at what they do," said LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner in a prepared statement. The acquisition will allow job seekers using the popular networking site to look up skills required for certain positions and then be directed to selections from the multilingual library of skills-training videos Lynda.com has built up over its 20-year history.

LinkedIn hasn’t offered details about how it will integrate lynda.com’s videos into its site. The company offers free profiles with limited capabilities and a fee-based service with more advanced search and promotional options.

Lynda.com makes money through subscriptions to video tutorials in five languages from professionals and educators. LinkedIn could offer these videos under a separate subscription service, or incorporate them into its current premium subscription.

The acquisition is valued at $1.5 billion, “subject to adjustment,” comprising 52 percent cash and the rest in LinkedIn stock. Lynda.com was founded in 1995 by former multimedia professor Lynda Weinman and her husband, Bruce Heavin.

Weinman described the deal as offering LinkedIn’s 350 million members worldwide a “self-paced study of new skills.”

LinkedIn Corp. (NYSE:LNKD) shares rose 1.1 percent to $255.03 in afternoon trading after the news was announced. The company’s share price is up nearly 11 percent for the year after it announced in early February that it posted a 44 percent increase in revenue to $2.22 billion last year, handily beating analysts’ forecasts. But heavy spending in 2014 on sales and marketing helped tip the company into a net loss of $15.3 million.

LinkedIn is expected to report its most recent quarterly earnings after the markets close on April 30.