Good day, and welcome to today's Graham Holdings Company 2021 Investor Day. Today's conference is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the meeting over to Timothy J. O'Shaughnessy, Chief Executive Officer. Please go ahead, sir.
Thank you all for joining us for our 2021 Investor Day. I am coming to you along with several members of our team from our offices in Arlington, Virginia, and several of our managers will be joining us from their offices. I'm also pleased to announce that we are currently planning for our annual meeting of shareholders to be restored to in-person status. The meeting will take place on May of 2022 at the Hamilton Live in downtown Washington, D.C. I hope you're able to come by, see one of the premier locations of Clyde's Group, and meet some of our business leaders. We're gonna now put the disclaimer for the session today up, for a moment or two for folks to review that if they'd like. Okay, today, we have five speakers for you.
I will kick off with a brief summary of financial results year-to-date, comments on capital allocation, and thoughts on our other businesses. Emily Barr will talk through the trends of the local broadcast business and our continued evolution to a local media operation. Andy Rosen will update you on our Kaplan business, as well as our navigation of COVID and travel restrictions in our international operations. Finally, Wally Cooney, our CFO, and Sandy Stonesifer, our Chief HR Officer, will tag-team a presentation about our pension plan. Following the presentations, we will host a Q&A session. Thanks to those who sent questions in advance. We will also be answering questions in real-time submitted through the chat in the presentation portal. We'll take as many questions as time allows. Our financial results for the first three quarters of 2021 reflect a partial recovery from COVID.
As the year progressed, both Kaplan International and Clyde's Restaurant Group operations improved, but have not yet fully recovered to 2019 trends. Dekko remains challenged as large end markets and commercial real estate and hospitality remain challenged. Revenue through Q3 grew 11% and adjusted operating income grew 3%. As a reminder, 2020 contained meaningful political revenue at Graham Media Group that did not repeat in 2021. Operating cash flow declined 1% from 2020, while free cash flow declined more substantially from $149 million to $59 million. The reason for this is simple. In Q3, we acquired two properties, one at Kaplan and one in our automotive group, for approximately $95 million in cash, all of which was classified as CapEx.
In both cases, we expect acquiring these properties to improve the cash flow profiles of the operating businesses that made the acquisitions. In Q4, operating cash flow will likely be down as compared to 2020. We haven't figured out how to have elections occur annually, but we'll keep trying. Our balance sheet and liquidity remain strong. As of Q3, our cash and securities totaled $913 million against $556 million in debt. In 2021, capital has been allocated more broadly than in previous years. We acquired a new business at the parent level, Leaf Group. We completed or are in the process of completing what we call bolt-on acquisitions at several of our operations. We purchased a new campus to create a long-term home for our MPW operations in London. We funded or continued to fund several internal organic initiatives.
We increased the dividend, and through November 30, we have repurchased 62,198 shares of the company. It is unlikely next year we'll have as much variety in capital deployment. While not foreclosed to the possibility of an additional transaction at the parent level, we believe the most bang for our buck will come from helping several of our managers seize opportunities to increase the earning power of their businesses. In the immediate future, we plan to prioritize time and effort towards helping grow the earning power of our existing operations. In addition to maintaining our dividend, our primary near-term capital allocation priorities will be continuing to fund promising internal initiatives such as Framebridge, repurchasing shares. As evidenced by our recent repurchases, we believe there is a substantial delta between share price and our view of intrinsic value.
If that gap persists, we are likely to continue to be a buyer, evaluating bolt-on opportunities, primarily at Kaplan and Graham Healthcare Group, as well as on a case-by-case basis at other operations. We believe our current balance sheet and liquidity allows us to fund these priorities. Before Emily and Andy walk through two of our bigger engines, Graham Media Group and Kaplan, let's spend some time talking about our group of companies creatively called other businesses. Our other businesses group houses a varied set of companies, currently numbering 10. Some make money, others lose money. Collectively in 2021, this group will lose a substantial sum. I would like to share how we think about this group of businesses, but first, a little background. The other businesses group is relatively new to the company, really only becoming meaningful in aggregate scale within the last decade.
While financial reporting shows the aggregate revenue and expense sums for the group on a year in, year out basis, the businesses within the group have not remained constant. This requires a bit more detailed financial analysis for those looking to make multi-year comparisons of trends. Although the company generally discloses reclassified comparisons going back at least two years when a business is moved in or out of a segment. We have identified four scenarios that exist in the long term for our businesses within this group. A business reaches a scale where it graduates and becomes a broken out segment within our financials. This has happened with manufacturing, Graham Healthcare Group, our automotive business, and SocialCode, now Code3. In the case of SocialCode, operations became challenged and the business was reabsorbed back into the group. Two, it produces steady cash flow that can be used to allocate elsewhere.
Three, it gets shut down. This was the case with Trove, a digital news operation. Four, it is sold. This can be a happy occurrence, such as with Megaphone, or it can be an attempt to achieve some amount of capital recovery, as with The Root. We manage every business with an eye toward achieving the first two outcomes with reasonable returns on invested capital. We no longer think that possible, we will look to exit or sell. Our business leaders know and understand it's not an inalienable right to be owned by Graham Holdings. In aggregate, this has been a very successful strategy for shareholders. We believe that the value realized from Megaphone when combined with conservative views of value of our graduated businesses, Graham Healthcare Group and our automotive dealerships, far outweighs the cumulative capital invested in this category.
There are obviously no guarantees the current set of businesses will generate similar results, but we work with our managers with the same level of rigor and expectations as in the past. Where does that leave us today with this group? For the set of businesses currently in other businesses, we expect 2021 will be a peak investment year and losses should be reduced in 2022. We expect revenue to grow next year. Some of this will be from the addition of a full year of Leaf Group, and a sizable chunk of it should be organic growth. Leaf Group is now the largest business by revenue within the set of other businesses. We are still early in our ownership of the company, but we are optimistic about the long-term return profile. Future growth at Leaf should drive meaningful flow through to the operating income line.
One of the more frequent questions I am asked is, "How should we value the group of other businesses?" Unfortunately, I don't have a magic formula to unveil. If I did, I'm certain it would be called too aggressive by some and too conservative by others. It is a fact that there are hundreds of millions of dollars of invested capital in this set of businesses. We believe attractive returns are a realistic possibility, and if we were to sell these businesses today, which to be clear as a group, we have no interest in doing, we would expect to recover an amount greater than our invested capital. At this point, I'd like to bring in my colleague, Emily Barr, who I've asked to provide an update on the local broadcast landscape, as well as Graham Media Group's ability to grow its local presence beyond traditional broadcast.
Before I do that, I would like to toot Emily's horn for a moment. As close followers of the company may already be aware, Emily was recently named CEO of the Year by the industry publication TVNewsCheck. This comes on the heels of being named 2020 CEO of the Year by the other major industry publication, Broadcasting & Cable. If you have a chance to check it out, TVNewsCheck did a series of in-depth articles on Emily and her team. It will be worth your time. You'll come away with a greater understanding of why our business has had the success it has and a deep appreciation for the leadership Emily has provided through a tumultuous few years. Tooting now complete, I'd like to turn it over to her. Emily?
Thank you, Tim, for those incredibly kind words. I am so humbled and grateful to be leading Graham Media Group. I'm also delighted to have the opportunity to provide you with an overview and update on the company, as well as delve into the overall broadcast landscape. We are living in interesting times, to say the least. The growth of digital and social media and myriad of streaming and on-demand platforms continues to swirl around us at a breathtaking pace. It is not uncommon to hear that television stations are relics of a bygone era, irrelevant in our mobile and digital age. Yet, our ability to navigate this new world order requires us to operate nimbly across all of these platforms without losing sight of our core mission: to provide extensive, trusted local news reporting that informs, investigates, uplifts, and celebrates the communities in which we live and work.
Our relentless focus on transforming our local newsrooms into multimedia hubs is paying off in greater usage, greater revenue, and broader brand exposure that is connecting with users and viewers across the demographic spectrum. Just last week, immediately following the horrific school shooting tragedy in suburban Detroit, our website, ClickOnDetroit, garnered over one million users in less than 24 hours from individuals seeking detailed, nuanced information from a trustworthy source. As local newspapers continue to struggle and disappear, local television media has emerged as the most trusted source of unbiased news. No small feat, given our country's increasing polarization and fixation on the concept of fake news.
Politicians on both sides of the aisle do not agree on much these days, but they remain anxious to connect with their constituents, who in turn flocked to our television, web, social, and mobile platforms throughout the COVID crisis, desperate for news they could trust. Our network partners, ABC, NBC, and CBS, have a renewed appreciation for our authenticity and are leveraging our local goodwill to enhance their own national coverage. In turn, we are demanding and receiving significant involvement with their nascent streaming platforms that we believe will bear financial fruit for us moving forward. Our ability to connect the dots for the communities we serve is not only essential to our relevancy, but it underpins our democracy, which absolutely depends on free, vibrant, and independent local media. Now, as a reminder, we comprise seven local media hubs covering just under 7% of the U.S.
Over 8.5 million households in primarily top 50 markets, with Houston as our largest market at number eight, and Roanoke our smallest market at number 71. We operate three NBC affiliates covering Houston, Detroit, and Roanoke, one ABC affiliate in San Antonio, one CBS affiliate in Orlando, and a fully local independent station, plus a CW affiliate in Jacksonville, Florida. In addition, we own and operate Social News Desk, a SaaS-based company headquartered in Atlanta that currently serves over 2,700 television, newspaper, and radio newsrooms worldwide, making it easier and more efficient for them to write, edit, post and curate news on social media platforms. Also based in Detroit, Graham Digital oversees all of our digital, mobile, and OTT strategy and implementation for all of our properties and is considered a leader in the field of broadcast digital operations.
With the continued specter of COVID still dominating the news cycle, both locally and nationally, the first three quarters of 2021 have proven to be resilient, with total revenue increasing modestly over 2020. This is especially significant because 2020 saw an enormous amount of political advertising flood into our markets, particularly in the late third and fourth quarters of the year due to the November elections. With no real political spend to speak of in 2021, we did experience a surge of sports gambling advertising in two of our markets, primarily in Detroit, as well as a much improved presence from categories such as home improvement, health and fitness, and professional services.
Operating income before amortization decreased by $3 million in the first nine months of 2021, due in part to expense increases in network and third-party digital fees, as well as higher sales expense due to increased revenue. Now, as I just mentioned, 2020 saw a record amount of political spend pour into our markets throughout the year, and that meant the absence of some $95 million in 2021. By contrast, this past year has been relatively quiet in terms of political and is completely consistent with the odd even years of broadcast political advertising. Our 2021 average weekly reach during our 6:00 P.M. newscast has returned to pre-pandemic levels and is roughly in line, though slightly below, 2019 levels. We have experienced a marked increase in our average daily digital users when comparing 2021- 2019.
As you can see here, 2020 experienced a significant spike in digital traffic brought on by our COVID coverage. This 25% increase from 2019- 2021 is the result of a concerted and focused effort to reach younger users where they live, online and on their mobile devices. Each of our station's websites and mobile platforms have experienced significant growth over 2019, despite the obvious decline from the height of the pandemic last year. We are particularly proud of the fact that every single one of our stations is number one in their respective markets, according to Comscore, and has shown significant growth in mobile usage. We continue to focus much of our attention on our mobile strategy as we firmly believe our future depends on our success in the digital and mobile arenas.
When we measure our success, it is critically important that we recognize the impact of local news as it continues to be the driver of what we do in creating and distributing local media in our markets. Local news is 100% of our image and a significant driver of our advertising revenue, both on air and online. Our station's strong positions in relatively large markets have allowed us to function much like a speedboat passing an ocean liner in that we remain nimble and flexible in setting our course. We are not burdened by corporate overhead or the challenge of assimilating different company cultures into our organization, as some of our competitors have experienced as they have acquired other broadcasters and grown very large in scale, but are still wrestling with the best way to manage and grow their assets.
In addition, our network partners are finding themselves splitting their focus between broadcast and streaming, and we are discovering opportunities abound for us to engage in the streaming space on a local level that we believe will prove profitable over time. For example, we have developed several over-the-top applications in many of our local markets, focusing on hyperlocal programming, weather, and community events. One area of growth we are delighted with is what we call Insiders. Each of our stations has launched a membership focus program that allows users and viewers to sign up for a special connection to their local station and website. This, in turn, gives us valuable insight into exactly who is connecting with us and what is driving their usage.
We began the program a little over a year ago and have been extremely pleased with its growth and the potential for revenue growth to follow from it. Every effort we are currently engaged in is laser focused on our users, ensuring that their experience is valuable, useful, and locally oriented. We have built newsletters, weather and news applications, and utilize user-generated content both online and via our own OTT apps that connect with users and viewers in a meaningful way that has kept them coming back for more. The aforementioned Insiders program allows our most ardent fans to connect with us through in-person and online events designed to enhance their relationship with our media hubs.
These insiders are deeply loyal to our news content and are a valuable audience for our advertisers. As a result of this laser focus on users, we believe our deeper connection and relationship with our viewers and customers, along with a unified user experience on all platforms, will increase the lifetime value of these known audiences. This will ultimately drive better actionable user data and become an increasing share of our advertising revenue over time. On the OTT side, we have increased our average users by 22% over 2020 and see much more opportunity for significant growth in the years ahead. Overall, digital revenue for Graham Media Group is up 21% over 2020 as a result of our relentless focus on this end of our business.
We now have three of our markets launched on the next generation of ATSC 3.0 platform and are working with Google on targeting advertising to those early adopters who are already purchasing ATSC capable TV sets. We are also one of only a handful of companies that have already launched a 3.0 interface, seen here on the left side of your screen, that allows viewers to call up local stories and clips as they are watching on our air. ATSC 3.0 is in its infancy, but also has the potential to allow us to datacast, and that could become a whole new revenue stream in the years ahead.
As streaming and cord cutting continue to impact our over-the-air broadcast viewership, we have seen an almost 11% decline in traditional cable and satellite viewing and an increase of 42% in the use of virtual providers such as YouTube TV and Hulu + Live TV. While we are grateful for the growth of the virtual providers, they are not making up for the loss of traditional cable and satellite, which continues to adversely impact our overall retransmission revenue. Finally, I just want to recognize the quality and variety of local news content we are developing and producing across all of our platforms, as we believe this is essential to maintaining and growing our viewer and user relationships. Solutionaries takes a deep dive into some of our community's most vexing issues and presents solutions that are playing out in the real world and making a positive difference right now.
Our Trust Index has helped viewers and users dissect fact from fiction in a straightforward, apolitical manner. Something Good is a regular series of specials available over the air, digitally, and on OTT. It is designed to celebrate and uplift our local communities with positive stories that can sometimes be drowned out by the daily onslaught of hard news. Forecasting Change is Graham Media Group's group-wide initiative to tackle the impact and real-world consequences of climate change on our communities. Television news ratings, digital access, and the beginnings of next-generation television access across the GMG footprint remain strong and are a meaningful reflection of the critical role we play in informing, uplifting, and celebrating our communities.
As we all continue to grapple with the enormity of COVID and the impact it continues to have on every aspect of our lives, local news has never been more relevant and remains the most highly trusted source of news and sought-after information for a large portion of the news-consuming public. Thank you very much for your time today, and I'm happy to answer any questions you have during the Q&A. Now I would like to turn it over to Andy for an update on Kaplan.
Well, thank you, Emily. Great report. As you say, like almost every organization around the world, Kaplan continued to face COVID-related challenges in 2021 that were truly unprecedented. Those challenges, which we started seeing with our Wuhan students in January of 2020, began fully impacting our business by March 2020 and continue to a greater or lesser degree today. In most areas, we've been able to navigate well to the new reality, though in some, the constraints of the pandemic remain significant. There are some positives for Kaplan that have come about in the wake of the pandemic. First, we've used this period to build upon our assets and technical expertise, adding capabilities that have not only helped us navigate the new normal, but have also meaningfully strengthened the earning power of our business for years to come.
Examples of this are the migration of many of our classroom courses to online, significant enhancement of our digital products, and deeper development of student and client support systems, particularly in an all-digital environment. Second, in 2020, we undertook a number of strategic changes, including reorganization and integration of our three primary U.S. units into a single division, and the consolidation of our languages group with fewer centers and offices in strategic locations. In 2021, this has resulted in a more streamlined organization with lower fixed cost and greater operating efficiency. You'll see that play out in our results. Finally, across Kaplan, our team showed immense dedication in supporting our students, partners, suppliers, employees, and shareholders.
I'm confident the care and quality we showed our partners and customers during this difficult period will pay forward as it became even more clear to our stakeholders that when the chips are down, you want a partner like Kaplan. To recap, Kaplan has four key priority areas, which include, first, helping students qualify for, access, and succeed in school from high school through graduate and professional school. Second, helping students and working professionals qualify for and succeed in jobs. Third, helping universities achieve their goals, including attracting and serving students and ensuring those students become successful and ready for work. Fourth, helping companies identify and employ highly qualified candidates and ensure employees are equipped to succeed. Kaplan has an exceptionally wide range of programs and services we offer for students, universities, and companies.
We believe the depth and diversity of our programs and services provide us with two distinct advantages. First, we have a large global base of students whom we can serve in multiple points throughout their learning journeys. Second, our deep relationships with universities and businesses enable us to create a holistic learning ecosystem connecting all three segments. Each segment supports the others. We're working hard across Kaplan to capitalize on these advantages. From a financial perspective, the first nine months of 2021 have been solid, with most of our underlying businesses demonstrating improved or at least stable results. Our U.S. supplemental education businesses, which benefited from cost reductions achieved during the North American integration, led the operating income improvement. The number of test takers has trended down for many of our major exams during the pandemic, impacting our revenues.
However, our market leadership position our market leadership positions as well when exams resume towards their normal schedules and demand levels. We are also optimistic about the capability leverage the North American integration brings to our competitive strength in these markets. As we continue to make progress integrating technology platforms and sales, as well as marketing and customer service capabilities, I expect that our exam preparation businesses will increasingly bring the scaled power of Kaplan's portfolio to bear, providing a competitive edge through lower costs, enhanced delivery, and bundled offerings. U.S. higher education has a range of partners, with the financial results continue to be driven primarily by the performance of Purdue Global. Purdue Global's results have been stable despite some cash flow timing items that impacted our fee recognition.
Through the first nine months of 2021, Purdue Global served an average of 34,000 students, essentially even with the average number of students served during the pandemic bump of 2020, and about 20% more than at the time of the sale of Kaplan University to Purdue. As we've reported previously, Purdue has taken a long-term approach to the growth of Purdue Global, investing steadily in academic support, new policies, and academic outreach. While these decisions are Purdue's to make, they are consistent with our own long-term philosophy, and we think will serve the institution well over time. The institution's key metrics have continued to improve since Purdue assumed control in 2018. Retention rates are up, academic preparedness has improved, and overall student degree profile is higher.
We are proud to provide support for Purdue Global as it continues to improve its academic and financial metrics. In addition, Kaplan has continued to add new programs and partners to its overall portfolio across a range of program types, including new partnerships this year with, among many others, Georgetown, Columbia Business School, Brandeis, the University of Connecticut, University of Newcastle, and Massey University, plus businesses like Keller Williams Realty, Roche, Wells Fargo, Prudential, and Azets. Overall, the decision to integrate our U.S.. Divisions into a single North American division has proved to be a good one, and Kaplan North America CEO Greg Marino and his strong leadership team have done an excellent job setting the table for growth.
At Kaplan International, meanwhile, David Jones, our CEO, and his extraordinary group of leaders around the world have navigated the pandemic minefield with tremendous dexterity and skill, resulting in far better outcomes than we might have expected. Our improved results were driven mostly by our U.K. Professional and Pathways businesses and lower losses at Languages. Again, it is important to highlight that included in these 2021 results were significant losses at our Languages business. Like many of our businesses, Languages is entirely dependent upon the ability of students to travel to destination countries for short-term immersive languages, and cultural experiences. Students in some of our transnational businesses, notably Pathways, but others as well, were willing to shift their studies online as they pursued long-planned degrees overseas. In our Pathways programs, we help deliver the first year of a university education for international students in our partner universities.
Of course, some students who dreamed of attending a top Western university in person decided to postpone their starts until they can come to campus and reappear in our Kaplan-owned student residences. Overall, our Pathways and international recruitment businesses proved remarkably resilient through a pandemic that might have crushed them. Languages is different. That business offers short-term, immersive, experiential programs for international students who want to spend a month or two living in a dynamic Western city, making new friends from all over the world and learning a new language. For this kind of experience, online is not a substitute. The flow of new students went nearly to zero when global travel halted and borders closed.
We made the decision to stick with the business, and while we narrowed our portfolio, we maintained the global infrastructure that has created enormous goodwill and good earnings over the years with the goal of reaping the benefits when international travel resumes. Through the first nine months of 2021, the pandemic-induced losses for our languages businesses totaled $31 million. We had hoped that the grip of the pandemic would loosen this year, allowing us to capture a decent portion of our usual summer enrollment. However, the Delta variant choked most of the peak season. We have so far seen improvement in the fourth quarter as student bookings have risen to a level greater than the pre-pandemic fourth quarter of 2019.
Our hope is that this will continue, although the arrival of the Omicron variant is a good reminder that the course of the pandemic is hard to predict. Subject to the evolving news of this and other new variants, we currently plan to persevere through this adversity, as we believe doing so will be rewarded with improved market share, competitive advantage, and future returns. There is no guarantee we'll be right, but we believe that despite the significant short-term pain, this is the best long-term deal for the shareholders, not to mention the students who depend upon us. I would note, though, that because of our restructuring activities, we now require 35% fewer students to break even than we did in 2019, which bodes well if demand returns.
Adjusting for the losses in languages, $31 million for the first nine months of 2021 and $36 million for 2020, you can see the relative strength and accomplishment of the remainder of the business. Many of our international businesses, notably Pathways and U.K. Professional, are moving into 2022 with earnings momentum. We've launched a new on-campus pathway college with the University of Newcastle, which is a global top 200 university. We've commenced operations of a Melbourne campus for the University of Adelaide. We've expanded into New Zealand with the launch of Massey University College on their Auckland campus, signing a direct recruitment agreement with the university whereby Kaplan is responsible for all of Massey's international student recruitment through the education agent channel.
We anticipate seeing some relief from the COVID challenges in Australia, where the borders have been shut since the start of the pandemic, and MPW, our sixth form college in the U.K., that also got hit by the disappearance of the international students. We'll face some headwinds in Singapore in 2022, arising from regulatory challenges that led us to halt new enrollments for just under 10% of our total program offerings. We are far along in making the changes necessary to seek restoration of these programs and are hopeful we'll be able to do so in 2022. It's important to us as these programs are integral to our offerings in Singapore, where we like our long-term position.
Assuming the global restrictions imposed in response to the pandemic continue to abate and new variants don't drive major parts of the world back into lockdown, I'm optimistic about our position entering into 2022. The reduction in language losses should help a lot alongside the momentum of many of our other businesses. I've been pleased with the resilience of Kaplan through the challenges of the past 18 months. We've spoken in the past about the strength that our diversification provides. Fundamentally, though, the ability of our business to persevere, compete, and thrive over the long term is derived from the foundational strength upon which each of our underlying businesses has been built. Our aim is to add competitive effectiveness and earning power to each of these underlying businesses and to bolster that strength with the power and capabilities of our adjacent businesses.
More specifically, each year our goal is to improve operationally through new technologies and better processes, expand programmatically within our existing markets and into adjacent markets, consciously staying within our sphere of expertise and invest in good businesses that extend our reach, add scale by sharing capabilities derived and developed in one unit across our portfolio, and most importantly, continue to add to our perpetually growing base of tens of millions of successful, enthusiastic, and grateful alums and hundreds of institutional corporate partners, which furthers our brand and referral base. We steadily apply this formula to add incremental earning power each year, building layers of protection from threats and disruptions as we go. Kaplan has long been somewhat unique in the education marketplace because we have that decades-long history of working with a broad range of individual customers, universities, businesses, and governments across the globe.
This uniquely positions us with an ability to globally source qualified students from a very wide range of channels to serve a similarly wide range of programmatic destinations. It starts with the ability to recruit a highly diversified group of qualified students at scale and at reasonable expense. We recruit through multiple channels for the benefit of our standalone programs we offer in connection with our university partners, and programs offered directly by universities. In the U.S. alone, the power of our brand and our marketing efforts attracts some 800,000 students per year across these programs. Most of this recruitment occurs in highly contested digital channels, where sophisticated technology and analytic expertise is a key determinant of the results. Scale matters in this arena, and we believe Kaplan's scale and capabilities in this area are unparalleled.
On the university front, we have partnerships with nearly 50 universities globally, and this year alone, we launched more than 150 new degree and online programs with our university partners. Our publishing unit sells more than two million books annually. By delivering high-quality programs that help students achieve their educational goals, we make it more likely that students will keep returning to us for their educational needs throughout their lives. Corporate boardrooms, government agencies, nonprofits, and universities are filled with Kaplan graduates who are our most important advocates. To professionals around the world, wealth managers in Australia, accountants in the U.K., financial planners in Singapore, doctors, lawyers, and financial professionals here in the United States, Kaplan is the best-known and most respected path to licensure.
We believe we recruit more international students to come to study in a Western country than any other company in the world. We serve around 250,000 students in our international business in a normal year, a large percentage of whom travel overseas to study. We have close to 80 sales offices strategically placed around the world, a substantial direct recruiting function, and more than 3,000 agent relationships distributed just about in every country in the world. Kaplan has a very strong reputation in the agent community. Agents know that if they recommend our programs to a student, those students will have a high-quality, valuable experience that reflects positively on the agent. The interactions the agent has with us, including getting paid, will be timely, accurate, and without hassle. Our markets continue to be competitively dynamic.
The past few years have seen record levels of investment in EdT ech companies aimed at disrupting education segments around the world. In 2020, an estimated $16 billion was invested in EdT ech companies, representing a 44% compound annual growth rate since 2014. We expect that number will keep rising this year as investors see an education world permanently changed by the pandemic. This money is being spent around the globe with the U.S., Europe, India, and China accounting for most. Investors in education are familiar with companies like 2U, Coursera, ApplyBoard, and Udemy that have achieved high market valuations for their efforts to aggregate large numbers of prospective students on behalf of university partner programs or their own programs. Though these companies are currently unprofitable, the market is enthusiastic about companies that embody a future in which education takes place digitally.
In the meantime, the pressure these companies and many others are under for growth drives up competition and marketing costs for the whole market. Kaplan has focused its growth plan around three key areas we refer to as sources, extensions, and connections. We discussed these strategic areas last May, but as a reminder, for sources, our aim is to continue to expand our database of prospective students, already more than 40 million, in ways that make us less dependent upon increasingly expensive traditional media. For extensions, our ambition is to convert episodic relationships with students, as well as partners, into continuous, repeated, high-value relationships. For connection, we create connections among our students, university partners, and corporate relationships in ways that benefit them, and through that value add, benefits us as well.
We spent a fair bit of time in the annual meeting this May talking through these strategic initiatives. Since then, we've made good progress advancing the technology, data, analytics, sales, and marketing infrastructure at KNA and KI to support these initiatives while simultaneously investing in early-stage business models with high growth, expansion, and connection potential. Further development of these models could have a meaningful impact on Kaplan's economics over time. We believe at the end of the day, Kaplan will continue to be distinguished by the quality of its offerings. We will thus keep investing heavily in the quality of our curriculum, instructors, technologies, and support systems, among other areas. We believe Kaplan has remained a leader in education because we prioritize our customers' experience and learning outcomes. We have a highly unusual process at Kaplan.
My senior team and I lead a regular cadence of learning reviews for each of our underlying academic units, presented by both the academic and operational leaders within each unit. These learning reviews function much like financial reviews, with each academic unit detailing its results, metrics, targets, plans, and commitments designed to continuously improve the learning outcomes and experience for our students. Our approach seems to be working. Our institutions around the world continue to lead the industry in academic recognition. Kaplan Business School in Australia, for example, continues to outrank every public university in the country on the metric deemed most important by the regulator in the federal government's annual quality indicators of learning and teaching surveys.
That is the metric of quality of entire educational experience. Dublin Business School in Ireland ranked above the average of all higher ed institutions in all measures of teaching and learning, and ranked substantially above the branded public universities in a 2021 national survey it administered on behalf of the Irish Higher Education Authority. Our partnership with the University of Essex for online programs in the U.K. did even better. There, we achieved a 95% student satisfaction rating on the National Student Survey, putting us at the very top of the U.K. compared to other mainstream universities. The Essex program also won Studyportals' Global Student Satisfaction Award for online classroom experience based on a survey of more than 100,000 students across 4,000 institutions.
Kaplan Financial in the U.K. earned PQ Magazine's 2020 award for the Private Sector Accountancy College of the Year for how we've managed to keep students learning through the pandemic. In the U.S., our exam prep business continues to lead the industry with our SAT, GMAT, and MCAT books earning the best of the best accolades from the BestReviews consumer review site. While Wealth Management Magazine named Kaplan's College for Financial Planning the number one instructor-led online certificate program for the CFP exam, and so on. Excellent academic outcomes are core to Kaplan's long-term strategy, and we will invest in that long term again and again, even when it costs us near-term margins.
We think that's what has helped us make us one of the very few education companies that has been consistently profitable for decades, as competitors burst onto the scene like fireworks and then flame out. I should add, being a great place to work helps as well. We were pleased when Newsweek selected Kaplan to be on its Most Loved Workplace list for 2021, recognizing us as among the top 100 companies for employee happiness and satisfaction at work. Kaplan also received a top workplace award from the Sun Sentinel, where Kaplan's headquartered, and various other such awards across our global footprint. Taking advantage of Kaplan's geographic and programmatic diversity isn't automatic, and we still have a lot of work to do, but the stakes make it worth it.
The education world is shifting more rapidly than ever, with the pandemic vastly accelerating an already underway shift to digital. The winners will enjoy disproportionate returns, which is why so much money is flowing into the space. Our strategy is to lead with quality and student outcomes, which may not be glamorous, but is what our customers expect from us. We think the strength that comes from the diversity of our business and our marquee partners and clients and our exceptional talent around the world, and a steady, patient approach to our markets has enabled us, more than many others in our market, to ride out the challenges of the last two years and emerge with our competitive advantages enhanced. Now I will turn it over to Wally and Sandy for their thoughts on our pension assets.
Thank you, Andy. Sandy and I are pleased to have the opportunity to discuss our pension plan with you today. First, I'll give an update on the funding data of our pension and highlight how it flows through our financial statements. As I think you'll see, the update on that front is quite positive. Second, I'll provide an overview of the various ways the pension surplus has been utilized historically and provide an update on some fresh thinking on this front as well. The pension surplus is not just an abstract number on our balance sheet, but rather has a tangible impact on our business in a variety of positive ways. Finally, I'll turn it over to Sandy to discuss ways we think the pension can continue to help differentiate Graham Holdings in the increasingly competitive human capital marketplace in which all our businesses participate.
Tim spoke earlier about GHC's strong balance sheet, and as we've reported for many years, a key component of our strong balance sheet is the company's significantly over-funded pension plan. Importantly, the cost of pension benefits has been self-funded by the plan. GHC has not made any meaningful cash contribution to its pension fund since the 1980s, and it is unlikely that it will make any cash contribution in the foreseeable future. This puts us in a highly enviable position. Our future operations should greatly benefit from this as we expect to provide attractive retirement benefits to our employees going forward, just as we have for decades. Current management deserves no credit for this. All the credit goes to Katharine Graham and the wisdom she had to ask Warren Buffett for his advice and take it back in 1978.
Mr. Buffett recommended that we invest our pension assets in equities and hire smart advisors to manage those funds. That is exactly what Mrs. Graham did in hiring Ruane, Cunniff & Goldfarb and First Manhattan, both of which have put forth remarkable investment performance for our pension fund for over 40 years. It's important to highlight certain fundamentals with respect to the company's pension plan. First and foremost, pension funds are not assets of the company, but rather pension funds are held in trust for the benefit of current employees, former employees, and retirees. Plan administrators have fiduciary obligations to the plan and its participants. Further, there are a multitude of ERISA, DOL, and IRS regulations and guidance that must be carefully adhered to and monitored on an ongoing basis.
As you would expect, the company carefully manages these obligations and has trusted external legal counsel and actuarial professionals that fully vet all significant actions with respect to employee benefits and the Graham Holdings Company retirement plan, and this will continue in the future. We have also undertaken certain de-risking actions in the last five years that have resulted in higher relative pension overfunding levels. The pension funds continue to be managed by Ruane and First Manhattan, along with more recent diversification with investments managed by Durable Capital and investments in Berkshire Hathaway stock, a U.S. stock index fund, and short-term fixed income securities. As of September 30, 2021, the company had $3.2 billion in pension assets and roughly $1.1 billion in pension obligations.
This has taken the plan from 1.8x overfunded at the end of 2015 to approximately 2.9x overfunded at the end of the third quarter of 2021. From an income statement standpoint, we report the service cost component of pension expense in our operating results. It is important to note that this is a non-cash charge, as pension benefits have not been funded from operations, but rather from the overfunded pension plan. Non-cash pension expense included in operating results totaled $17 million in the first nine months of 2021 and $23 million in 2020. Here's a summary of non-cash pension expense included in operating results that has been funded by the company's pension fund over the last five years.
Going back to 2013, service cost of The Washington Post Company hit an all-time high of $46 million, which included many businesses that are no longer owned by the company. The pension plan has also funded substantial early retirement and other employee reduction-related incentive programs over the years. These totaled $14 million in 2020. These expenses are also non-cash and are included in the company's non-operating results. Finally, we have reported a substantial net non-cash pension credit each year due to the significant overfunding of the pension plan, along with other items related to certain de-risking actions as detailed in our financial filings. In recent years, at meetings like this, the company has reported its operating cash flow, which is income before depreciation, amortization, and impairments and excludes non-cash pension expense.
We believe this is a meaningful way to review our operating results given the overfunded pension status. Our operating cash flow for the last five years includes about $100 million in non-cash operating pension expense from 2016- 2020. I think it's fair to say that our situation is unique since there are very few companies like us with such a substantially overfunded pension plan. We, of course, view this as both a great thing and a unique challenge, as there simply are not that many playbooks out there for exactly how to best manage our overfunded pension. That said, it is a key focus area of the current management team, and we're excited to have the opportunity today to update you on some of our current thinking in this important area.
As Don and Tim have discussed over the years, the pension plan is valuable to the company and its current employees and retirees in many ways. It provides a generous pension, a defined benefit to employees that can reach over 8% of annual salary. It allows the company to provide a pension benefit in lieu of a higher 401(k) match that would be funded with cash. The plan has been used to provide enhanced early retirement and other separation benefits to employees in times when staffing levels have been reduced. also, the company assumed pension obligations in a 2017 transaction. Graham Media Group acquired two additional television stations and assumed $59 million in pension obligations that made up a meaningful part of the deal. While we have found ways to utilize the pension surplus historically, we continue to explore new opportunities as well.
Based on pension asset levels at the beginning of 2021, a 2% investment return will more than cover the estimated annual pension service and interest cost components of about $50 million in 2021. What this means is that even if our current pension assets only generated on average a 2% return going forward, the surplus would continue to grow. One question we have been asked is: Why not just cash out a portion of the surplus? Well, there's one very big reason. Under existing regulations, there are significant adverse tax consequences. A simple cash reversion from the pension plan to the company would be first subject to a 50% federal excise tax in addition to federal and state income taxes.
How might GHC utilize surplus pension assets in the future for the benefit of current employees, former employees, future employees, and the company? Our management team has been carefully exploring opportunities in several important areas. First, M&A. GHC could assume pension obligations from an acquired company like we did in 2017, and we continue to actively pursue such opportunities. Unfortunately, often companies with a significantly underfunded pension plan are not good acquisition candidates for us. Second, a qualified replacement plan or a QRP. What is a QRP? A qualified replacement plan is a defined contribution plan funded in connection with a pension plan termination. A QRP includes a direct pension asset transfer from the terminated plan to the QRP.
We have been studying the possibility of a spin-off transaction in which a part of the existing pension plan is spun off and then terminated in order to fund a QRP within one of our 401(k) plans. To make it abundantly clear, this is not a spin-off of a business or the pension plan, but rather a mechanism to allow for existing pension funds to be used to fund contributions to the 401(k) plan. A QRP and pension asset transfer must meet complex regulatory criteria to qualify for this status. How could a QRP be advantageous to the company? As many employees greatly value defined contribution benefits, a QRP could be an avenue for funding and expanding employer-defined contribution benefits.
Of course, the clear benefit of doing it in this way is that we could greatly reduce current and future cash expenditures related to retirement benefits. QRP funds might also be used to fund defined contribution benefits for employees from recently acquired companies or for new employees from future acquisitions. In general, QRP funds must be expended within a seven-year period. If the company replaced $15 million-$20 million in annual defined benefit service costs and $5 million-$10 million in defined contribution benefit costs with a defined contribution benefit of a similar amount that was funded through a QRP, that would indicate a total QRP in the range of $150 million-$250 million that could be established and expended within seven years.
Under a QRP, subject to satisfying existing regulatory requirements, there is the possibility for cash reversions of up to 3x the amount of the QRP transfer from the pension plan to the company. That reversion would be subject to a reduced federal excise tax of 20% in addition to federal and state income taxes. However, in the near term, the company would be unlikely to consider any cash reversion from the pension plan until we have exhausted other more tax-efficient opportunities for effectively utilizing surplus pension assets. The third area is expense replacement. We continue to explore opportunities to shift current employee benefits funded with cash to enhanced pension benefits funded by the pension plan. Fourth, workforce retention. There are a number of initiatives under consideration to enhance employee pension benefits in order to attract and retain valued employees.
Now I will turn it over to Sandy to provide some color from an employee recruitment and retention perspective.
Thanks, Wally. As Wally said, we're in a unique position. There isn't a playbook for how to best utilize a pension with our level of overfunding. That said, we count ourselves lucky to have the opportunity to find new ways to enhance employee benefits while improving our business results. The pension trust was created for the benefit of our employees, and we take our responsibility very seriously to protect the assets and continue to use them to support our past, current, and future employees. Finding ways to leverage this asset is more important than ever. It isn't news to anyone listening that this is a difficult labor market. We, like others, are seeing higher turnover, growing compensation and benefit expectations, and steep competition for talent across our businesses.
To stay competitive, we must focus on what employees value and what improvements will have a real, measurable impact on the attraction and retention of critical staff. We're exploring ways to use our pension funds for improvements to our retirement benefits overall, including a greater focus on the defined contribution benefits that today's employees particularly value. We're also exploring adding retirement programs for businesses that don't currently offer them, as well as implementing new or improved pension benefits as a retention tool. In today's highly competitive talent marketplace, we view this as a key strategic differentiator of Graham Holdings. What can improved pension benefits as a retention tool actually look like? A good example is the Graham Healthcare Group retention credit, which was announced to GHG employees just before Thanksgiving. We've all heard about the extreme nursing shortages in the U.S. and globally.
Our healthcare group is impacted by this competitive talent market and limited capacity, just like others in the sector. The industry's high employee turnover rates are proving to be a meaningful constraint on growth, as well as a significant cash expenditure due to the cost of hiring and training new employees. The new GHG program offers a retention credit of up to $50,000 per employee, cliff-vested after three years of continuous employment. The purpose of the credit is to incentivize employees to continue working for GHG and serving our patients with top-quality care for years to come. For now, the program has been set up to begin on January 1, 2022, and run through December 31, 2024, in order to track and measure the impact on retention and growth.
Our analysis shows great promise of improved earnings from increased retention, and we expect the overall benefits to exceed the cost of the program. As a reminder, all costs of the program are non-cash expenses funded from the pension assets, though they'll be recorded in GHG's operating results. When evaluating such programs, we're looking for a clear ROI. Normally, we look at all of our investments on a cash-on-cash basis. From that lens, our new healthcare program's projected return looks quite good. The reason is that we expect the program to create significant incremental cash flow for our healthcare business by reducing hiring costs, reducing costs associated with employee turnover, and increasing the revenue generation of the business from having a larger nursing staff available to serve more customers.
We won't know exactly the size of this uptick to the cash earnings of the business until we are further into the program. We do know the benefits will be greater than zero. In fact, one could argue the denominator in our cash-on-cash analysis for the program is effectively zero. There are no incremental cash costs associated with the program, as it will be funded out of our existing pension surplus. Despite that, it's important to note that our pension surplus is not an unlimited asset, and we are not treating it as such. While there are no cash costs to Graham Holdings by utilizing the surplus for investments like our healthcare retention program, there is an opportunity cost associated with the investment.
Therefore, when evaluating ways to utilize the pension surplus effectively, our goal is to fund programs that have the highest relative return when compared to the next best use of the pension asset. We think the healthcare program scores positively from that perspective as well. We are hopeful that we can apply the learnings from this new program to help our other businesses with their talent challenges and to effectively find ways to shift additional employee compensation expenses out of treasury. We believe that an efficient use of our excess pension funds is to identify high-value employee benefits that can add business value and improve our operating results over the long run, and we will keep looking for more of these opportunities. Wally spoke earlier about Mrs. Graham's instrumental leadership in the value creation of the pension.
She also famously talked about how quality and profitability go hand in hand, and that remains a guiding principle at each of our businesses. Finding ways to attract and retain the best talent and reward them for all they do for the company, our customers, and the communities we serve remains central to this promise of quality. We will continue to explore these and other opportunities to leverage the pension to drive value for the company and look forward to sharing more as we do. Wally and I thank you for your time, and now I will turn it back over to Tim.
Thanks very much, Sandy. That concludes the prepared remarks portion of our presentation. We'll turn to Q&A now. As a reminder, some people have submitted some questions in advance or during the course of this presentation, but you are able to continue to submit questions in the box that you will see in the presentation viewer. We've got a little less than an hour right up until about 3:00 P.M. Eastern for Q&A. We'll go until then or until there are no more questions. The first question to kick it off that came in is, Graham competes with publicly traded companies, private equity firms, and family offices. These competitors use low-cost leverage to improve return on investment. Graham does not.
The practical matter, is it possible for Graham to increase equity value at a competitive rate without using leverage, say, exceeding 8% per annum? I kind of hear two parts to that. First is really a question around leverage. We have stated we'll continue to state that we're always gonna be on the more conservative side from a balance sheet standpoint. I mean, we think in terms of generational time horizons and want to operate that way. That said, I don't think we are at our maximum leverage point. If we found a deal or an opportunity to put cash to work in a way that we didn't think added much risk and was an overall attractive usage of that.
We would be looking at taking a little bit more leverage on as part of that. Maybe that's a little insight on the leverage front. In terms of competitive rates without using leverage, and then I think what's referenced is 8%. You know, I think that's possible. There's obviously no guarantees on future returns. I do think it's quite possible because you know, over the last four years or so, our ROEs I think have averaged about 9.4, 9.5% or thereabout.
We have been able to achieve that rate of returns on equity, and that's, you know, with the pension will more often than not actually be a drag on that because of how it's calculated within things as well. We do think we've done that. It's pretty realistic to do it on a go-forward basis as well. We'll move on to the next question. Most large acquirers in the broadcast space have reached or are imminently reaching the national cap. Graham Media may be positioned as one of the few remaining potential acquirers of stranded station portfolios.
If GMG is to be an acquirer, wouldn't a standalone equity currency improve transaction feasibility and minimize secular risk? If we aren't a buyer, are we a seller? If not, why not? First off, I guess I would say you know, it's really a question about our view on Graham Media, and we've been pretty consistent on this, which is we think we have a really good business that's really well-run, that's important to the overall cash flow profile of our company, and probably, you know, no more demonstrated than during 2020 and COVID, and the depths of COVID, I should say. You know, I think we also view you don't always have to be either a buyer or a seller.
You know, sometimes being an owner of the business, which, you know, our corporate culture has tended to be, you know, very long-term oriented in terms of ownership of the business, is a good and right thing to do. Obviously, we look at the market, we look at our positioning, and we determine, are we comfortable associated with things? We've remained comfortable under that lens with Graham Media Group. In terms of, you know, a standalone currency, you know, I think two things. One, if our ownership structure were prohibitive to growing a business or improving the long-term prospects of a business, whether it be Graham Media or any, I think we would look at that.
You know, I think we actually thought that, you know, with Megaphone about a year ago, that we were not gonna be the right long-term owner of that business. We, you know, would look at that, you know, a little bit further away with Cable ONE. We determined that there was a different structure that made sense there. I don't think we've come to that conclusion with Graham Media Group. Particularly on the equity currency side, you know, I mean, that industry hasn't really had a lot of equity transactions in general. I mean, it has largely been cash, you know, debt-funded transactions.
I think, you know, once again, in the circumstance that the question is asked around, that, you know, in our view, that doesn't really make sense with Graham Media Group because we have been prevented from doing anything that we would wanna do because of the ownership structure. Okay. Next question is on Framebridge. How are the Framebridge economics evolving as it scales? Anything that can be shared on the impact from opening new locations and the second manufacturing facility would be helpful. Framebridge is a business that, you know, has grown in 2021 over 2020, and we believe has good growth prospects ahead. It is a business where the economics, we believe they will get better and substantially better with scale.
Some of this is around pretty quantifiable, you know, if you are purchasing more from suppliers, if you are shipping more items, you negotiate better per unit rates. Some of it, as the business grows and there are more orders from certain places, our ability to be efficient in certain geographies will also increase quite a bit. We pretty firmly believe that the overall kinda growth margins on a unit basis will continue to improve, and we've seen that historically over time with the business, will continue to improve as the business scales due to some of those factors. Let's move over. Next question, Andy, is for you.
Question is, more color on what Kaplan's businesses look like following the restructuring initiatives would be helpful. Not really looking for guidance, but more of a clear picture on how the offerings to learners and their cost structure are different today versus two years ago.
Yeah, sure. Well, hopefully you heard a little bit about this in my comments, but we've been focused on achieving greater consistency in systems, processes, in student recruiting methodologies, and so on, to unlock the potential of serving students over the entire lifetime of their learning journey. The idea is over time, our students and partners will move from sort of episodic or transactional interactions to more of a continuous relationship. In the U.S., you can see in our 2021 results a picture of the cost synergies that we've already seen. We've made significant progress with integrating technology platforms and sales, marketing, and customer service capabilities and so on.
Along with reorganizing the functional teams and increasing the remit of the shared services and enablement areas, we've also implemented a number of new processes to improve things like data capture and customer service, project prioritization, capital allocation, and so on. I think these standardizations are gonna go a long way to improving our ability to execute on our strategic extensions and connection strategy. As just, like, one example, we've been marketing to some of our online enablement clients like Purdue Global, Lynn University, Wake Forest, and so on, programs to alumni of our exam prep products. Now, we're still early on in the integration, but there's already a number of other campaigns that are in development. I think there are a number of things to talk about there.
Okay. Andy, don't get comfortable. We got another one for you. LinkedIn suggests that Kaplan is actively hiring for a multipurpose strategic partner division serving universities. What are aspirations for this operation?
Well, as I mentioned, Kaplan has added a number of university partners over the past year, and we're seeking to support them across an array of programs and services, including our pathways and international student recruiting programs, online enablement programs, pre-college immersion programs. We've got an innovative shared career services model to help students prepare for their first jobs that we provide across a number of universities. We've got what we call credit degree programs that combine industry-recognized credentials with degree programs. Our diversified portfolio enables us to expand on a number of these partnerships. We've got, you know, a lot of good examples. You know, Wake Forest, University of Essex in the U.K., are partners on a number of those areas that I just described.
Because Kaplan's broad range of programs and capabilities make us uniquely positioned, in my view, to partner with universities across a spectrum of needs, we're focusing on building more substantial university partnerships where we can bring a wide array of our capabilities to help them grow and ensure their students succeed. The LinkedIn posting you're referring to is really just adding muscle to this opportunity area. There's a lot of salespeople out there who can sell a narrow range of offerings, so we're looking for special talent that can help a university understand that they can solve a lot of challenges with just one partner.
All right. To you again, Andy. Management has argued several times the restructuring of Kaplan will allow them to create lifetime customer relationships. The student who use Kaplan for SAT prep really have an incremental affinity for the brand when they prepare to study for the CPA. Is this really a tangible benefit?
Well, I think the short answer is yes, but the affinity has to be earned. I could definitely share plenty of stories about like entire families who've been loyal Kaplan customers for generations with multiple family members studying for multiple exams with us and multiple programs. Now, while this has traditionally happened organically, the opportunity, you know, for us is to be more deliberate about creating linkages for our alumni that make it easier and more top of mind to stay in the Kaplan family for multiple education needs, and make their experience better because they come back to a place that already knows their learning history or their learning style, their strengths and weaknesses. You know, and we haven't done that up to now, but that's our intent.
Clearly, there's very little incentive for a customer or a student to come back to Kaplan for their future needs unless we nail their current experience. If they have a great experience with us, and most of our students do, we have built-in permission to serve them again. Even beyond that, it's easier for us to market to these students once we've served them and we understand their interests and their needs and their preferences. What this restructuring allows us to do is be more strategic in curating lifelong relationships by bringing together programs that were previously in different units. Your example of SAT and CPAs is a good example of that. Those were different units prior to the integration.
If we can then build an operational backbone through, you know, common CRMs and data management, journey mapping and so on, that amplifies a dynamic which in many cases is already happening organically when students have a great experience with us. You know, creating incremental affinity to Kaplan with a customer early in their learning journey should lead to an improved consideration when they get ready to make their next decision about a provider. I would say maybe even more importantly, expanding our relationships with our customers, we believe, will enable us to more holistically and economically develop our revenues. You know, to be clear, this is a long-term strategy. I mean, even if we're great at this, it's quite a few years after a student takes the SAT that she's even thinking about becoming a CPA student.
It's not something you see, you know. You start one month and you know, you see a couple of months later.
Okay, thanks, Andy. Next question, I will take, which is, should Graham Healthcare be spun off similar to Cable ONE so that the new company could use stock as a currency in acquisitions? You know, I touched on that briefly already, just sort of a high-level view on when we would look at doing some things sort of philosophically. If you applied a Graham Healthcare lens on it, I think we would say that, you know, to date, the business has not been unable to do anything that it needs to do with regards to growth or compensation or M&A and transactions. Not having its own, you know, separate stock as a currency has not been prohibitive to anything that they have tried to do.
We don't think it would be of any benefit to shareholders to do so. Once again, just reiterating our view is to not necessarily try and optimize for a specific moment in time, to try and optimize for the whole portfolio over a very long period. Okay, next one I think will be for me again. Since the spin-off of Cable ONE in mid-2015, the Graham stock price is down around 10%, while the S&P is up. While the market may be inefficient from time to time, it's not over six years.
Can you explain how capital allocation could have added any value and why just paying dividends and maybe buying back shares would not have been a better alternative? Okay, well, a lot there. I guess what I would first say is, you know, there's probably lots of noise. If you're going back to kinda, you know, Cable ONE-specific point in time, there's a lot of noise around that. I think if you looked, you know, shortly before Cable ONE was spun or shortly after, you know, the stock was relatively level and then had one particular spike, you know, of some substance right around the spin and then settled back down.
If you know, if you looked at the returns, I'm kinda doing this in my head real quick from six months after the Cable spin, it's probably been about a 5%, you know, compounding returns. Which I think we've grown intrinsic value more than that over that period of time. You know, as I referenced earlier, we think there's a pretty big gap between our view of intrinsic value and the share price, which is, you know, why we have been repurchasing as of late and referenced if we think that gap exists, we won't hesitate to do more so in the future.
In terms of capital allocation, you know, specifically, I mean, we have since the Cable spin, we have returned via dividends and share repurchase, you know, about approximately $700 million in capital to shareholders. It has been a really large portion of kind of capital allocation over those periods. It is something that obviously we think about and we act on. You know, as indicated before, we continue to think about and act on.
You know, I do think that we will in terms of returns, and who knows how people will look at this, but as you know, as COVID recovery happens, we think that'll be good for our business as some of the stuff that Andy just talked about comes to fruition. At the end of the day, you know, to quote the immortal Bill Parcells, you know, your record is you are what your record says you are. You know, I think we're not really sure that all the points have been counted to date, and so we have been repurchasing shares as such.
We are hopeful that, you know, the, you know, next pick whatever time horizon you want will have a share price align a bit more with what our view of intrinsic value is. Obviously, there's no guarantees that that will happen. Hopefully, that's a little bit of color and insight on how we think about some of that. Okay, moving back to Kaplan. Andy, Kaplan's results based on EBITDA and segmental assets was 4% in 2019 and 2% in 2020. What kind of returns is the business capable of in the medium term, and what is the path to get there?
Yeah. Again, I think that hopefully you know my comments earlier I start to address that question. I will say that our approach to making investments currently for long-term you know gain will from time to time depress our current financial performance metrics. We you know we don't always know when these opportunities will arise, so we tend not to predict period-to-period financial metrics like you know the return on assets or related kinds of metrics. You know our perseverance in the language market, for example, where we lost $57 million last year and $31 million year- to- date this year is an example of a sizable investment we're making for what we hope will be a long-term return advantage.
Now, obviously, an investment like this sharply depresses our current period returns but we wouldn't make these kinds of, you know, or we wouldn't incur these kinds of losses over time forever. I think you can do the math on what the return on assets or whatever, you know, metrics you wanna use looks like once they're behind us, but they are gonna be behind us one way or another. Beyond that, you know, as I described earlier, we think there is significant opportunity both on the expense and the revenue fronts going forward.
Okay. Thanks, Andy. Next question. When you think and talk about the value of your various businesses, how do you account for the substantial corporate overheads at Kaplan and HQ? You know, when we think about it in terms of a question of how do you think about it in terms of valuation, you know, we think that we help our businesses drive greater growth and value. But when we think of it in terms of valuation, you know, it is a cost center, so we reduce our view of intrinsic value, you know, due to the corporate expenses. I guess that's how we think about it.
We think about, you know, we are helping our businesses achieve value at a greater rate, but from a valuation sense, you know, it is a cost center, so we will reduce our view of valuation, because of that cost center. Okay, the next question is: You spoke of bandwidth in last year's annual meeting. Now that Graham Holdings owns more businesses, happy about that, do you have the opportunity to spend the appropriate time with each manager and team? And what have you learned since 2015 about decisions or judgment on the managers you acquire? So for the first part of that question, yeah, we do. You know, we do have the ability to spend the appropriate amount of time.
Part of it is our model is such that we are, you know, when we are acquiring businesses and looking to hire people, we are looking for people who don't need the day-to-day operational support that maybe would be there in other businesses. Our interactions with managers tend to be much more around long-term strategic positioning and capital allocation within their businesses. I think we are more filled than not in terms of our capacity with a group of businesses that we have, but I don't think that we are over capacity there. Some of that is because of the model.
The second part about what have we learned about decisions or judgment on the managers you acquire. You know, I think it's, it is really important to find people who wanna run the businesses because they love the businesses and then can make a lot of money with success. Not people who have it flipped around. I think when you find those managers, the likelihood of them building great teams, having great places that people wanna work, and finding a long-term home within our organization is enhanced. That is, that's I think the number one thing that we really look at is do they have that prioritization in the order that I outlined. Okay. A few questions here.
Emily, I'm gonna turn this one to you. Can you further discuss how the digital traffic to the local stations is monetized? Is it primarily advertising?
Yeah. So yes. The short answer is yes, it is primarily advertising. Although we are currently exploring e-commerce and paid memberships, which are generating you know some money at this point in time. We also garner a pretty good amount of money now from YouTube through kind of a passive revenue stream because our YouTube channels will generate obviously advertising on YouTube, and then we get our share back from that. The other thing I would just point out is that we are very much engaged with the National Association of Broadcasters on trying to get the JCPA passed, which is the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act passed.
That would allow television stations to negotiate with the platforms like Google, Facebook, et cetera, for more meaningful participation in the way they distribute our news. Those are all the kinds of things that are going on right now. In addition to that, we're experimenting with some online paid events. For right now, I would say the bulk of our revenue is coming from advertising.
Great. Thank you, Emily. Next question is regarding Leaf. Can you discuss what part of the business is likely to generate the operating income you referenced earlier over the long term? Well, I think we're hopeful that there are multiple parts and ultimately all three parts of the segments of Leaf. The one in the near term that we think will generate real cash flow and actually does, you know, generates real contribution margin is the digital media business. That generates meaningful contribution margin. You know, we like where we're positioned. We have some really nice growth brands within that business and suspect that, you know, over extended periods of time, that will get better.
On the other two businesses, both of which are e-commerce, Saatchi and Society6, we think incremental growth on those businesses. They don't have quite as much contribution margin today as the media business, but we think growth on both of those businesses has pretty good flow-through rates, and that you know, the positioning of where they're at and the markets that they're at should have tailwinds that should grow for a while. You know, without putting out kind of guidance or estimates, we think all three businesses over the long term have the ability to generate increasing amounts of operating income. Andy, for you, is there the opportunity to expand Kaplan International margins long term?
Yes, absolutely. In fact, you know, we think a lot of stuff is hidden by the overhang of COVID. You know, we've emphasized the impact of COVID on languages, but it really impacts essentially all of our international businesses, certainly all of our transnational, international businesses, which is most of them. Australia borders have been closed, you know, since March of last year. When Australia reopens, margins are gonna come back. Our Pathways business is doing great, but will do better when COVID has passed. I don't want to just say that the COVID receding will be the driver of the increase in Kaplan International's margins.
I think if you can look through the COVID impact, you can see the strength of many of those businesses and the opportunity for, you know, what we believe, you know, could be much higher margins. That's certainly the goal.
Yep. Totally agree. Okay. Next question is, does existing float become an issue in executing share repurchases over the next few years? Interesting question. I don't think that it will. I mean, I guess if there are not sellers, then so be it. You know, the market normally corrects for that over time. You know, we have a little less than five million shares outstanding, which I think is probably about 3.5x as many as Berkshire has, and Berkshire is able to go and repurchase a pretty significant amount of shares still, and put a lot of capital to that. I suspect the answer is no.
You know, it's a little like predicting the future. You don't know for sure. I suspect no. Okay, back to Andy here. Andy, realizing that COVID is skewing current numbers, is Kaplan still capable of earning good returns on invested capital? If so, can you walk us through what has to fall in place to get back to attractive returns from this business? Is it just COVID subsiding or are there other factors that will get Kaplan there?
Yeah. Well, I feel like maybe this is another version of the same question. It's a perfectly legitimate question, an important one, but you know, obviously COVID receding will help the returns of the business, full stop. I think, you know, you do see, you know, signs of strength throughout our portfolio. But I would just maybe just add a different element to this. You know, I had a slide in which I showed a number of public companies that have very high valuations, all of whom have decidedly negative returns on capital over their lifetimes.
The reason that they're valued at the level they are is because there is this sense in the market that the world of education is on the cusp of changing dramatically or that the changes that were underway prior to COVID have been accelerated at a pace that is gonna create meaningful opportunity for a number of entities. Now, some investors like to think that all of education is gonna get disrupted and there'll be some, you know, Google-like entity that's gonna emerge on a winner takes all basis. I think there's a lot of reasons why it's not gonna play out that way. We feel like we are as well positioned or better.
You know, as well positioned as any, certainly, and better positioned than just about anybody to take advantage of the trends in the education marketplace. I think one of the key things you're seeing in the education world we're seeing now is more emphasis on practical education as opposed to more theoretical education, more emphasis on work readiness, more emphasis on affordability, and certainly more emphasis on a digital education. All of those things go right into our wheelhouse. The kinds of things that Kaplan has been focused on for decades are now in vogue, and there are a lot of new companies that have emerged to try to capture some similar markets.
Look, I have my view on the pace of change and how Kaplan is positioned. You know, personally, I think we stack up pretty well against the other companies that have not done it yet, but are sort of positioning to be big beneficiaries of changes as they emerge in this sector.
Thanks, Andy. Next question is about broadcast. In recent years, you have not added any additional TV stations to increase scale to help in retransmission negotiations as well as with network affiliation renegotiations. Why is that? Are TV stations prices currently too high in your opinion? On the flip side, is the reason why you have not sold the TV stations the very low tax basis you have. So I'll answer this and then I'll start off, and then Emily, if you wanna chime in, particularly on the retrans and network affiliation, feel free. So you know, we have...
We feel like the scale associated with retrans and network affiliation, there has been more emphasis put on that than we think is actually materialized. Our view on that is that yes, benefits of scale have long been touted there. The realization of the benefits associated with that, I think, is. We may be in a unique situation because we have very strong stations and very strong markets, but we have been just pleased with where we've landed relative to our view of the industry on that front. Emily, do you have anything to add on the retrans and network comp side there?
No, I would agree with you. I think that given our unique footprint because we're in these very large markets, generally speaking, we have you know, we kind of punch above our weight in that respect. When we go in to negotiate with a network, and even if we're only affiliated with one network or with one station and one network, it's usually in fairly large markets and we perform really well in those markets. We have somewhat of an outsized influence. Our ability so far to garner what we feel is a fair deal comparable to what some of our competitors get with many more stations feels to us to be pretty, you know, pretty much in line. We found that to be the case with both retrans negotiations and with network negotiations.
The second part on are TV you know TV stations currently too high or you know a version of the buyer or the seller question from before I think. You know I think we don't always have to be a buyer or seller of something. It's also important to keep in mind because of the diversified nature of the company you know we can allocate capital a variety of different places as well. You know kind of pricing and what makes sense to do is looked at you know across the portfolio and across opportunities including things like share repurchase. You know I don't wanna opine specifically on broadcast valuations on things.
As I said before, we've been pretty happy with the business that we have and how well it's been run and continue to look and evaluate. As we referenced before, we think the narrative around scale, at least for our company, has sort of surpassed the actuality associated with that. I think the numbers have borne that out over the last few years. You're correct. If we were to be a seller of our broadcast stations, we do have a very low tax basis. I think the first station was acquired or became part of the company in the fifties. We're going back a ways there.
Ultimately, you know, it still comes back to, you know, we're pleased with the business and the operations that we have. You know, when we've surveyed both our business and the landscape, we've never thought it just made sense for us to be a seller there. Hopefully that's a good little more additional color on that. Andy, a question about Purdue Global. Will you ever earn the full fee under the TOSA from the relationship with Purdue University Global?
I'll say this, Purdue is committed to grow over the long term. We're committed to helping them grow. That's a good start, but I would just emphasize, as I always have, that this is a long-term play. If there's one thing that you know in education is that brands in higher ed take a long time to develop. The reason you don't see new universities emerging every you know very often. In fact, when a group of people decided to start a new university, this University of Austin that some folks may have read about, it got a lot of attention just for the audacity of actually starting a new university. We'll see how that plays out.
It's not a typical market where you can just emerge immediately and thrive. We've had, you know, we are in the process of helping build the reputation, and you know, consideration for Purdue Global, and that does take time. The players that we're competing with in this space have been in it for decades. That's true of Southern New Hampshire, true of Western Governors, Arizona State, University of Maryland Global Campus. And we feel very comfortable. We think Purdue Global is a great brand. It's doing well, but it's gonna take a little while. We've got to get bigger to generate sufficient earnings to earn our full fee.
You know, again, we look at it from a long-term perspective, and we like the approach that Purdue is taking towards, you know, the long-term orientation.
Thanks, Andy. Next question is, have you ever considered putting out a quarterly slide deck? Your company can be inaccessible to new shareholders. What would be the harm? You know, the answer is, if we meaningfully consider that, no. It's probably a good opportunity to take a step back and talk about how we try and present information. You know, I think as people know, you know, we do not manage the business for quarterly results. If you care about what our results are, you know, down to the penny in any particular quarter, we're probably not the right type of company for you to own, 'cause that's not how we manage the business.
What we've really thought about is that our company doesn't change enough every, you know, 90 days to have meaningful updates. Then you get into a world where people overread things, et cetera. You know, we've taken an approach that if we provide two real opportunities per year where we do in-depth discussions and allow for, you know, ample Q&A and ample presentations, for the type of business we are and how we operate, that aligns really well. Our annual meeting, I think, has moved far from the days of when it was the Post and people were complaining about editorials to, you know, a substantive business meeting.
What we're doing this Investor Day is about six months from that. As you have found, it is a substantial update on the business and an opportunity to answer questions. We think that that is pretty appropriate for the type of company we are, the pace of change associated with the company. You know, we hope that it works for the vast majority of our shareholders, knowing that, you know, different people will want different things, but for most of our shareholders, we think that that's a pretty sufficient way of doing things.
Hopefully that is a little bit of kind of reminder on high-level perspective and you know how we think about that. Okay. Early impressions of the Leaf businesses. We are pretty glad that we own Leaf. You know we think that they are in categories that should all have tailwinds, and you know it is easier to be successful when you are in categories with tailwinds and the tide is flowing in. I think what we would say right now is I have been probably pleasantly surprised with the digital media business that there is real underlying strength there and opportunities to do maybe more than what I would have thought at the initial time of acquisition.
That in the e-commerce businesses, I think they are kind of what we thought that they were. I don't think our impressions have fundamentally changed on the e-commerce side from six months ago. You know, at some point we'll go through a full, you know, we'll have owned for a year or two, and we'll have more under the belt on that front. You know, in terms of the businesses, I think that's you know, what we would say as a report six months in. You know, another thing I'd say is we have really started to build up, I think, a good working relationship with the management that's there.
Every time you know, you transition from one structure to another, there's always change and risk associated with that. We think we can build up a good relationship and help that team have the ability to achieve a greater level of success now that they're inside of Graham Holdings. The next question is on the restaurant group. So Clyde's Restaurant Group. With the constraints of COVID hopefully easing, what is the forecasted growth for Clyde's Restaurant Group? Growth is most likely to be related to foot traffic and thinking outside the box to service people. What is being done to promote growth? Yes, I mean, COVID has been an enormous impact on Clyde's Restaurant Group.
At one point, I sort of realized there was some chance that we had some of the most impacted locations in the country. For those that are familiar with Old Ebbitt Grill and The Hamilton, which are pretty well-known and large scale units. In early January of last year, not only were they COVID impacted, not only was it cold, but you had the federal lockdown due to the insurrection and protests. You literally had to get through tanks and Hummers in order to actually get to their locations for a period of time.
You know, I guess there's no way of proving this, but I feel somewhat comfortable that most of the impacted businesses did not require checkpoints with tanks and Hummers to allow their customers to get there. So they have had a long way to go to get back. That management team has been fantastic. They have been wonderful leaders for the business and thoughtful for their employees, thoughtful for their customers and thoughtful for shareholders. The business has improved. As we referenced, it's improved its financials quite a bit coming out of COVID. We're hoping and expect that to continue to happen.
We do have some of those locations that are more institutional, and they are actually less reliant on foot traffic. I mean, they are places with day parts that are entirely filled, you know, the vast majority of the time due to reservations, et cetera. Those units are, you know, recovered well. Foot traffic, we're seeing differences between suburban and, you know, other downtown locations as people have where it is more foot traffic dependent and people haven't returned to work. We also, that team has been doing things around leveraging our scale with delivery platforms. That has become a much bigger piece of their business than it was, you know, 18, 20 months ago.
that is likely here to stay. That is an update on clients. We probably have time for just, you know, one more question here, it looks like. That's what I'm being told. Is Old Ebbitt Grill open, and can we meet there this coming year? Well, it is open. I encourage you to come down and spend time. We are, as I referenced at the very beginning of the business or the meeting, that we will be doing the annual meeting at the Hamilton Live, which is around the corner from the Old Ebbitt Grill in May.
You can come there and we can meet there. If I have my timing right, you can go head on over to Old Ebbitt for lunch right after, and do the Daily Double. Okay. We are at time here. I really appreciate everybody going and joining in on the call. Hopefully, you've been able to get to know some of our managers better and learn a bit more about some of the initiatives we've been working on and the businesses themselves. With that, I appreciate it. Thank you everybody for your participation.
This concludes today's call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.