Career Education Corporation Agrees to Acquire Harrington Institute of Interior Design

Business Wire, Dec 29, 1998

HOFFMAN ESTATES, Ill.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 29, 1998--Career Education Corporation (Nasdaq:CECO) today announced it has entered into an agreement to acquire the Harrington Institute of Interior Design, located in Chicago. The school has approximately 400 students currently enrolled and will continue to operate under its current name. The acquisition is expected to be completed by January 31, 1999. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

"Harrington Institute is an ideal fit with Career Education Corporation because it strengthens our presence in Chicago and the Midwest, and adds another top quality school to our visual communications curriculum," said company president and chief executive officer John M. Larson. "Since its founding 65 years ago, Harrington Institute has enjoyed a superb reputation, an excellent job placement record, and a first class faculty and facilities. These characteristics are at the core of CEC's operating philosophy and reflect our commitment to acquire only schools of choice."

"We are very pleased to join the Career Education family," said Robert C. Marks, president of the Harrington Institute of Interior Design. "CEC has a history of investing in and enhancing the schools it acquires so that we may further our mission of preparing graduates for professional positions in residential, commercial and institutional interior design."

Career Education Corporation's other design programs are offered at the Al Collins Graphic Design School, Tempe, Arizona; Brooks College, Long Beach, California; Allentown Business School, Allentown, Pennsylvania; Brown Institute, Mendota Heights, Minnesota; the Katharine Gibbs Schools, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York and Rhode Island; the International Academy of Merchandising & Design, Chicago and Tampa, and the International Academy of Design, Montreal and Toronto.

Harrington Institute is Career Education Corporation's third acquisition and fourth major transaction signed during 1998. CEC acquired the Southern California School of Culinary Arts in March and the Scottsdale Culinary Institute in July. In November, CEC announced an agreement to open new culinary schools throughout North America under the Le Cordon Bleu name.

"We will continue to grow the visual communication and design technologies area, as well as our other disciplines of computer technology, culinary arts and business studies through strategic acquisitions and by enhancing the curricula at the schools we acquire," Larson added.

Career Education Corporation is one of the largest providers of private, for-profit post secondary education in North America, with approximately 15,800 students enrolled. The Company currently operates 20 campuses in 13 states and two Canadian provinces. The Company's schools enjoy long operating histories and offer a wide variety of bachelor's degree, associate degree and diploma programs in career-oriented disciplines within the Company's core curricula of computer technologies, visual communications and design technologies, business studies and culinary arts.

The forward-looking statements contained in the release are based upon various assumptions, and certain risks and uncertainties could cause actual results to differ materially from those stated. Factors that could cause such differences include these matters disclosed in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Career Education Corporation assumes no obligation to update its forward-looking statements.