Three years after paying $191 million for Infosec Institute, Cengage wrote off every dollar of goodwill it had booked for the business. Cengage’s annual report for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2026 puts the goodwill charge at $101.6 million, plus another $62.4 million written off Infosec’s other intangible assets.
None of this comes from me or from an angry reviewer. It’s all in Cengage’s own financial reports, which are public on its investor site. I’ve quoted them directly and linked each one at the bottom.
What exactly did Cengage write off?
Here is the passage from the fiscal 2026 annual report:
“Goodwill impairment charges of $110.2 million for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2025 were related to a $101.6 million impairment charge in relation to the full write-off of our Infosec reporting unit goodwill within the Work segment ($62.2 million recorded in the second quarter with the remaining $39.4 million recorded in the fourth quarter)”
Cengage, Inc., Annual Report for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2026.
Cengage’s fiscal year ends on March 31, so the first charge landed in the July to September 2024 quarter and the second in January to March 2025.
The same report says the company also wrote down Infosec’s intangible assets, things like customer relationships and the Infosec trade name, after finding that their “projected undiscounted future cash flows … were less than their carrying values.” That charge was $62.4 million.
What does a goodwill write-off actually mean?
When one company buys another, goodwill is the part of the price that isn’t covered by assets you can list: the brand, the customer base, the expected future growth. Writing all of it off is the buyer’s accounting admission that the business is no longer expected to earn what it assumed when it paid.
To be fair about what it isn’t: it’s not cash leaving the building today. The money was spent in 2022. And it doesn’t by itself prove anything about any single course. It does tell you how the people who own Infosec, and see its real numbers, now value it.
Why does Cengage say it happened?
Cengage gave two triggers. For the first charge, its consolidated financial statements say the company “performed an in-depth strategic assessment of its Infosec reporting unit,” including “fundamental assessments of the cybersecurity awareness markets, including how those markets are evolving, our market and competitive position.”
For the second, it pointed to Washington. Cengage wrote that it saw “further impacts on its Infosec and Research reporting units’ governmental markets caused by shifts in federal funding dynamics,” which it said were “dictated by the new Presidential administration’s current budget priorities.”
Federal budget cuts are a real factor, and I don’t doubt they hurt. But the first write-off came before the new administration took office, and it followed a review of Infosec’s own market and competitive position.
What was Cengage telling the public at the time?
On November 7, 2024, Cengage announced its results for the first half of fiscal 2025, the same half-year in which it recorded the first $62.2 million goodwill charge. The press release said:
“The Infosec business, a leading cybersecurity education provider, had a solid first half, with revenue up 4% compared to the prior year.”
The release doesn’t mention the impairment. Revenue can rise while expectations for the future fall, so both statements can be true at once. If you were a customer reading the press release, you’d have had no idea the owner had just marked the business down.
Go back further and the tone is even rosier. When Cengage announced the deal on January 31, 2022, it promised it “will retain and invest in Infosec employees and products to support future growth.” By February 2026, its CFO was telling investors the company was “managing costs” in the business instead (I covered that call in a separate post).
Has it turned around since?
Not in the year that followed. For the fiscal year ended March 31, 2026, the annual report says Work segment growth was:
“partially offset by a $6.1 million decline in Infosec revenue, primarily reflecting $4.6 million of weakness in our Bootcamp offerings due to federal regulatory headwinds that adversely affected enrollments and overall program demand, and $1.0 million of decline related to higher customer churn in our IQ software products”
That’s the boot camps specifically, the product I paid for, losing the most ground. Cengage’s quarterly slides tell the same story. In the October to December 2025 quarter, Infosec and Milady (Cengage’s beauty and wellness education business, which it reports alongside Infosec) saw combined revenue fall 26%. In January to March 2026, they were 18% lower, “predominantly in Infosec.”
In fairness, the most recent update is less grim. In its August 5, 2026 release, Cengage said Infosec revenue fell another $1 million, blamed “timing in the U.S. government market,” and added that “underlying commercial performance strengthened during the quarter and into Q2.” Whether that holds is something I’ll keep watching.
What should this mean for you?
If you’re weighing an Infosec boot camp, the owner’s own filings tell you the business is shrinking, the boot camps are the weakest part, and costs are being managed down. That doesn’t guarantee a bad class. It does mean you should ask hard questions before you pay: who your instructor is, whether the materials match the current exam, and whether the provider is on the certifying body’s own partner list. My guide to verifying a training company’s claims walks through how, and the ISC2 official partner list is a good place to start for the CISSP.
Sources
- Cengage, Inc., Annual Report for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2026 (goodwill write-off, intangible asset impairment, fiscal 2026 Infosec revenue): cengage.widen.net
- Cengage Group, consolidated financial statements for fiscal 2025, 2024 and 2023 (reasons for both impairment triggers), available on Cengage’s investor relations page
- Cengage Group press release, “Cengage Group Announces First Half Fiscal Year 2025 Results,” November 7, 2024: cengagegroup.com
- Cengage Group press release, “Cengage Group to Acquire Infosec,” January 31, 2022: cengagegroup.com
- Cengage fiscal Q3 2026 earnings release, February 19, 2026: cengage.widen.net
- Cengage fiscal Q4 2026 earnings release, June 25, 2026: cengage.widen.net
- Cengage fiscal Q1 2027 earnings release, August 5, 2026: cengage.widen.net
Part of my full Infosec Institute review roundup: every complaint, the pass-rate claims, and better ways to prepare for the CISSP, all in one place.
