National Education Corp

Nature of Business: Operates accredited private schools in technical, industrial and vocational training; leases educational libraries. Total Employees: U.S. work force, 4,134; Orange County, 234 Stock Designation: Listed on NYSE and PSE as "NatEdu" Ticker Symbol: "NEC" Friday's Stock Close: $8.00; Change: +$0.38 Analyst Review: The company is being misinterpreted today by many investors because of some of the problems they have had over the past two years.

Harcourt General Inc. took a big step toward acquiring National Education Corp., saying that 96% of the shares of Irvine-based NEC had been tendered by Wednesday's deadline for the publisher's offer. Harcourt's $21-a-share bid for NEC, agreed to by the two companies last month, was subject to a minimum of 90% of the shares being tendered. With that benchmark surpassed, Harcourt said it expects to complete the $811.6-million merger by Tuesday. Based in Chestnut Hill, Mass.

National Education Corp. posted a second-quarter loss of $3.5 million, or 12 cents a share, contrasted with a profit of $270,000, or 1 cent a share, for the same period a year earlier. Revenue declined 2% to $89.2 million from $91.4 million. For the first six months of 1993, the company reported a loss of $7.9 million, or 26 cents a share, compared to a loss of $2.4 million, or 8 cents a share, for the 1992 period. Six-month revenue was down 4% to $172.2 million from $178.7 million.

Sam Yau bristles at being called a turnaround expert, though that's what others call him after he led the revival of National Education Corp. He refers to himself, instead, as a strategist--a corporate leader who can put a company on the right path to achieve its vision. Yau, 48, said he didn't plan to rebuild NEC so it could be sold or so he could turn over the president's reins to someone else. But that's what happened. On Tuesday, Harcourt General Inc.

National Education Corp., a company that provides job training, reported a $3.5-million profit for the third quarter, a slight gain over the same period a year earlier. The company said, however, that it is suffering a "substantial continuing shortfall" in the revenue of its training group, and that could depress earnings for the fiscal year. All other divisions have increased their revenues during the year. For the three months that ended Sept. 30, the firm's earnings were up 8% from $3.

The $2.7-million sale of an Orange County company's stock last year by Richard C. Blum, the husband and chief financial backer of gubernatorial candidate Dianne Feinstein, was completely proper, a spokesman for the company said Friday. Blum sold the stock in March, 1989--on the eve of a management shake-up that caused an immediate plunge in the value of the company's stock. Blum, a director and major stockholder of Irvine-based National Education Corp.

Tipping the scale significantly in the contest to acquire National Education Corp., publisher Harcourt General Inc. on Thursday said it sweetened its bid to $21 a share, or about $797 million. Last month, Harcourt offered $19.50 a share for the world's largest provider of correspondence courses, or $740 million. The unsolicited bid topped the all-stock deal, now worth about $688 million, that National Education agreed to in March with Sylvan Learnings Systems Inc.

Tipping the scale significantly in the contest to acquire Irvine-based National Education Corp., publisher Harcourt General Inc. on Thursday said it sweetened its bid to $21 a share, or about $797 million. Last month, Harcourt offered $19.50 a share for the world's largest provider of correspondence courses, or $740 million. The unsolicited bid topped the all-stock deal that National Education agreed to in March with Sylvan Learning Systems Inc. of Baltimore.

Publisher and retailer Harcourt General Inc. launched an unsolicited $740-million bid Wednesday for Irvine-based National Education Corp., upping the ante as it starts a fight to buy the world's largest correspondence school. Harcourt's plan to go to NEC shareholders with a $19.50-a-share tender offer surpasses the all-stock deal NEC directors reached last month with Sylvan Learning Systems Inc. in what was billed then as the "biggest deal in the history of the industry."

National Education Corp., which operates the world's largest correspondence school program, said Wednesday that it will be acquired by Sylvan Learning Systems Inc. in a $675-million stock deal that would create the country's biggest for-profit educational and vocational training business. The deal caps a turnaround year for Irvine-based National Education, which posted a string of hefty losses in the late 1980s and early '90s but broke into the black last year.