type private industry financial education founded 1970 headquarters la crosse wi products insurance licensing insurance continuing education securities licensing cfp r exam prep professional development and certificate programs parent kaplan inc. website http www.kaplanfinancial.com kaplan financial education is part of kaplan university school of professional and continuing education based in la crosse wisconsin . kaplan financial education is a consortium of numerous financial services training and publishing companies providing insurance and securities licensing exam preparation along with continuing education . it is ultimately a subsidiary of graham holdings company . contents 1 history 1.1 precursors 1.2 1980s 1.3 growth 1.4 further growth 1.5 kaplan 1.6 later developments 2 references history edit precursors edit the origin lies in three companies founded in the early 1970s blitz schools a training company established in 1970 by dennis blitz in dearborn michigan focused primarily on the financial industry regulatory authority finra then nasd series 6 classroom training for large insurance companies . blitz secured national contracts for series 6 training with prudential insurance new york life and john hancock . security schools established by tom keyes was headquartered in minneapolis minnesota and had offices in milwaukee chicago and miami . security schools provided insurance securities and real estate licensing classroom training . dsc publishing located in chicago illinois was a real estate licensing training company founded by bob kyle . kyle published the textbooks used in his classes and sold the materials to other schools for use in their classrooms . 1980s edit in 1984 bob kyle pitched the idea of a national financial training and publishing business to longman inc. a multi billion dollar british publishing company owned by pearson plc. pearson owned a mixture of well known brands at that time including the times of london penguin books madame tussauds wax museum and lazard fr res investment bank among other companies . longman acquired blitz schools security schools and dsc publishing and merged them together to create longman financial services inc lfsi . prior to these acquisitions longman had only minor operations in the united states and planned on using the firm as its u.s. entry . shortly thereafter longman purchased r & r newkirk an indianapolis based company that developed print products for insurance licensing and continuing education . the firm dated back to 1914 asresearch and review service of america a provider of insurance sales and product training . in 1960 the company acquired newkirk and associates a planned giving publisher and changed the name to r & r newkirk and company . the acquisition by longman in 1985 provided longman financial services a wide range of insurance training products and courses . growth edit over the next four years longman acquired more than a dozen small training organizations merging them into lfsi . these acquisitions were made to add new geographical market and or new product lines . a mong the more notable acquisitions during this time including fleur inc. and golle & holmes inc. both of which are described below fleur a securities exam prep provider was a large acquisition that brought classroom markets in new york california and colorado . the owner s son ed fleur later departed the firm and formed his own organization passperfect which is a competitor of kaplan s today . the financial services business of golle & holmes a minneapolis based custom writing group brought a new securities licensing product line passtrak into longman and a specific product broker in a box that was a print based self study program targeted towards large institutional firms and the nyse sixty day training requirement . problems arose because of the multiple locations multiple systems overlapping target markets and differing philosophies ultimately impacting profit margins and resulting in longman looking for a way to exit the business . in 1992 longman acquired a publisher in boston addison wesley and sold longman financial services to bob kyle and dennis blitz who they had retained during the initial acquisitions to manage the company . kyle and blitz split their new company into three distinct business units 1 real estate schools 1 2 real estate publishing and 3 financial services training . financial services was consolidated from four locations into one office in chicago illinois previously acquired insurance schools in wisconsin and arizona were sold and several other small schools were closed . the name of the company was changed to dearborn financial publishing which coincidentally was the street address of the company s chicago office at that time and the name of the detroit suburb where blitz originally founded blitz schools . further growth edit blitz and kyle made changes to the firm s product lines over the next few years discontinuing broker in a box and revamping passtrak which eventually came to represent the firm s streamlined exam focused product for the industry . in 1996 they started looking at compliance tracking and created dct an acronym for dearborn compliance tracking an internet based system that tracked compliance hours and course approvals as well as individual student and company programs . all financial services continued to operate under one name dearborn financial publishing while each real estate school operated under its pre acquisition name each dominant within a single state . kaplan edit in 1998 dearborn was acquired by kaplan inc. over the next few years kaplan made a series of strategic acquisitions . in early 2000 kaplan acquired schweser a highly profitable organization in la crosse wisconsin focused on training for the chartered financial analyst designation from dr. carl schweser and dr. andy temte . schweser was the global leader in cfa exam preparation and was well known for its high quality content and exceptional first time pass rates . the firm also acquired prosource 2 a minneapolis based classroom business that was the dominant provider in real estate and insurance licensing in minnesota as well as a large provider in insurance ce and securities exam prep . insurance systems of tennessee headquartered in nashville was acquired in 2004 to make dearborn the dominant provider of insurance and securities classroom business in the state of tennessee . three schools were acquired in texas including leonard hawes which made dearborn the largest insurance and real estate trainer in the state . insurance achievementtm 3 located in baton rouge louisiana was also purchased in 2004 to make dearborn the largest provider of insurance professional designations exam prep products in the country . ia was founded in 1964 by bob rackley and provided exam prep for nearly a dozen popular insurance designations including chartered life underwriter clu chartered financial consultant chfc and certified property casualty underwriter cpcu . saenger and associates was purchased from its founder bruce saenger in 2004 to strengthen dearborn s securities and insurance classroom market share in new york and surrounding states . in april 2005 kaplan purchased bisys education services 4 dearborn s largest head to head competitor for financial services training and a large provider of licensing and compliance services to the insurance and securities industry . the education products and services were merged with dearborn to become kaplan financial ; the compliance group became a separate operating entity kaplan compliance solutions . in 2006 kaplan purchased emind headquartered in los angeles california who provided online securities firm element training and tracking online insurance ce and a suite of online compliance tools . later developments edit in early 2008 5 kaplan financial was relocated from chicago to la crosse wisconsin the home office of kaplan schweser . the company was placed into the hands of kaplan schweser s management team and the name was changed to kaplan financial education . kaplan real estate education was also relocated to la crosse in 2008 and these three business units were collectively managed under the name kaplan professional education in 2009 . 6 in the spring of 2010 the kaplan compliance solutions unit was folded back into the business and kaplan professional education became kaplan professional . in january 2011 the kaplan professional business was placed within the kaplan university family and is now known as the kaplan university school of professional and continuing education although kaplan financial education continues to operate as its own brand within this business . kaplan compliance solutions was sold 7 to vertafore a provider of insurance software to agents managing general agents and carriers in october 2011 . references edit http www.prnewswire.com news releases kaplan professional acquires the real estate school a provider of real estate education in houston texas 54237892.html http www.thefreelibrary.com kaplan acquires prosource educational services % 3b minnesota schools ... a075367227 http www.prnewswire.com news releases kaplan professional acquires insurance achievement leading provider of exam prep and continuing education 71189442.html http www.thefreelibrary.com kaplan professional acquires bisys education services . a0131227762 http lacrossetribune.com news kaplan offices set to expand plan to move to riverside article 09b97e79 2745 5d41 88c7 7d32940bf152.html http lacrossetribune.com business local steve cahalan kaplan professional adds jobs in la crosse article 02f30645 c173 5f14 a808 2c1c4b57f744.html http www.vertafore.com about us news and events press releases vertafore completes acquisition of kaplan compliance solutions retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title kaplan financial education & oldid 720785549 categories la crosse 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