From a business standpiont, the company is way behind in efforts to upgrade its online Classroom technology. The newly deisgned classroom, which is more cosmetic, but does provide some better integration of things like the course syllabi with the automatic assignment submission and grading tools, has been delayed over the past 2 years, and may not start rolling out until after June 2014. Intenally, the company struggles with developing internal web pages for its various departments.
The curriculum has not been upgraded in a long time. There are efforts underway now to partner with industry verticals to develop more career and job relevant curriculum. Also it seems that Apollo is encouraging its schools to emphasize short term certificate programs, rather invest in its degree programs. The television advertising continues at an aggressive spend, despite the feedback from accreditation organizations and the Federal Government.
Finally from a governance standpoint there are some important questions. First of all, in a company whose revenues and profits are falling at 15% per year, why are top executives rewarded with generous bonus awards, and obviously low budget targets in terms of revenues and profits, so that the executives actually received bonus awards of about 134% of target bonus. This is while staff is being laid off, and those remaining are under tremendous pressure, and are not receiving any where near the compensation of senior management. Long term employees are paid maybe in the $100K to $200K range and might have been granted maybe between 100 and 500 shares of APOL over the years, but new senior management and board members get 5 to 7 figure share grants or more, immediately. They all appear to be selling as soon these grants vest, if you watch the steady stream of Form 4 Filings. The recently hired COO got about $3 million or more in compensation to join, and he lacks a relevant industry background, he comes from Cable TV. So that says to me that Apollo will continue to rely on mass-media based (including a large prime time TV spend) on marketing, and clever attempts to appear like it gives "scholarships" even though these are merely discounts or promotions, are there is no separate foundation that endows scholarships for students, nor fellowships for faculty and doctoral candidates.
The game Apollo is playing of underprojecting its quarterly earnings, while they are falling sharply, but beating the estimates, causing earnings-focused investors and traders to react and make the stock pop up is deceptive. There is no fundamental reason why the stock has doubled since its $16 bottom. Greg Capelli's background is not in education, it is as an analyst and in investment banking. He has been able to apply this experience to create a short term bounce in the stock price, after coming and actually presiding over what is basically a melt-down of a market first mover and leader.