As a corporate group, it owns and operates several private for-profit colleges and universities in the UK, Canada, Israel and Europe, as well as other brands and companies in the education sector, such as the e-learning provider InterActive.

[6] GUS was incorporated in the Netherlands as a Besloten vennootschap (or BV) and in turn became the owner of the LSBF Group institutions and St Patrick's College through Dutch holding companies.

[9][10][11] Concerns about the standards at both St Patrick's College and LSBF led to the UK government suspending their Tier 4 licences in 2015.

[4][12] Following the suspensions, Global University Systems announced plans for a two-year restructuring process of the group's UK holdings to begin in mid-2016.

[23] As of 2018, GUS was recruiting students for its universities and colleges from more than 175 countries through a network of approximately 1,100 independent education agents and 500 staff in its own marketing, sales and business development departments.

According to Moody's Investors Service, the company was deriving approximately 27% of its revenues in 2018 "from leveraging its agent network and marketing capabilities predominantly to source students for third-party institutions.