Apollo Education Group Rises 3% After Q1 Earnings Beat

Apollo Education Group APOL is up more than three percent in after hours trading after the company announced its first quarter results. The company reported a Q1 EPS of $1.04 versus the Street estimate of $0.90. Earnings per share were down 15 percent from the year-ago period. Revenue came in at $856.3 million versus the Street estimate of $860.58 million. Sales were down 19 percent year-over-year. "At Apollo Education Group, we are making good progress on our strategic plan to differentiate University of Phoenix, diversify Apollo and drive operational excellence throughout our organization," Greg Cappelli, CEO of Apollo Education Group, said in a company release. "To support our strategy, we continue to innovate, roll out new and differentiated programs that lead to careers of choice, expand our footprint globally while sharing best practices to leverage our growing network and become a more efficient company." Apollo raised its FY2014 sales guidance from $2.95 billion - $3.05 billion to $3 billion - $3.1 billion versus the Street estimate of $3.04 billion. In December Apollo announced that it planned to acquire a majority interest in Open Colleges Australia. Described as one of Australia's oldest and largest providers of distance learning, Open Colleges is expected to broaden Apollo's global reach. Disclosure: At the time of this writing, Louis Bedigian had no position in the equities mentioned in this report.