Thomson continues divestiture of learning/education assets.

Possible in need of cash because of the purchase of Reutersm Thomson Corp. (Stamford, CT) has continued a strategy of divesting its learning and educational market assets and has sold its Thomson Prometric (Baltimore, MD) unit to Educational Testing Services (ETS; Princeton, NJ), the nation's

Prometric has an extensive customer portfolio in the academic, professional, governmental, corporate and information technology markets. Its more than 400 clients include the College Board, Johns Hopkins University, the Institute for Certified Accountants and Association of American Medical Colleges. It offers testing development services, delivery services, data services, continuing education, license processing, and voucher services. The company has government contracts in Ireland, England, Saudi Arabia and federal and state contracts in the U.S. Clients in the technology market include IBM, Sun and Microsoft Learning. Prometric had annual revenues of $317 million in 2006.

ETS is Prometric's largest customer for technology-based delivery of tests and assessments through the delivery of ETS' Test of English as a Foreign Language test, Graduate Record Examinations (GRE) and the Praxis teacher licensing assessments. Prometric delivers its products through the web and via a global network of testing centers in 132 countries. The deal is expected to dose in the third quarter of 2007.

ETS was advised by Credit Suisse Securities. The company offers teacher professional development products and services, classroom and end-of-course assessments, and research-based teaching and learning tools. In 2006, ETS developed and administered more than 50 million assessments and had revenues of $836 million.

Since April, Thomson has sold its higher education, career learning and library reference assets of Thomson Learning and Nelson Canada to investment firms Apax Partners (New York/London) and OMERS Capital Partners (Toronto), and the assets of NETg to SkillSoft (Nashua, NH). Thomson also sold it Thomson Medical unit to ABRY Partners (Boston, MA) in April.