Edvantage Group Holdings Limited (“Edvantage Group” or the “Group”, stock code: 0382.HK), the largest private higher and vocational education group in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (“GBA”), is pleased to announce that acquire 100% equity interest in Guangdong Sun City Industrial Co., Ltd (“Target Company”), with a total consideration of 150 million yuan (RMB, the same below), or approximately HK$180 million. The Target Company holds 100% equity interest in Guangdong Huashang Technical School (“Huashang Technical School” or the “Target School”). The acquisition is in line with national trend of vigorously developing vocational education. With Huashang Technical School becoming a member school, not only supplements the Group’s vocational education mechanism in Guangdong Province, making the synergy of vocational education at all levels more prominent but also trains and provides technical talents at different vocational education levels to the society, further enhancing Edvantage Group’s education brand.
Huashang Technical School was approved to be established in May 2007, a full-time technical school located in Guangdong province with a superior geographical location. Up to now, the number of student enrolments is approximately 5,400. Guangzhou Huashang College (“Huashang College”) and Guangzhou Huashang Vocational College (“Huashang Vocational College”) share high-quality teaching resources with Target School including campus facilities and employment training. Huashang Technical School also has first-class teaching conditions, abundant teaching resources, high-quality “teachers with dual qualifications”. Huashang Technical School has a Training Center to carry out vocational training projects around the “Three Major Projects in Guangdong” including Guangdong Cuisine Chef, Guangdong Housekeeping, and Guangdong Technician, which is also a comprehensive base for Huashang vocational training, skills appraisal, innovation and entrepreneurship and social services. Target School has set up 13 market-oriented majors, covering “New Business” majors, preschool education majors, “Big Health” majors and other disciplines with strong demand for talents. Graduates have vast channels for higher-level study. At the same time, Huashang Technical School makes great efforts to promote school-enterprise cooperation with more than 100 well-known enterprises to achieve 100% recommended employment, and the employment rate has reached 98%. Graduates enjoy a higher employment rate and higher quantity and quality of employment.
High Organic Growth of Target School
Strong Performance Growth to Drive the Overall Performance of the Group
Cultivate Multi-Level High-Quality Vocational Education Talents
Benefiting from strongly supportive national policies of vocational education, including the integration between vocational and general education, the equivalence of enrollments, quantification of the proportion of vocational undergraduates and the vocational college entrance examination, etc., plus the strong demographic dividend and talent shortage in Guangdong province, the number of student enrolments of Huashang Technical School is expected to record a sustained and rapid growth since 2021/22 school year, which provides effective and potential student pool for both Huashang Vocational College and Huashang College. At the same time, Huashang Technical School provides students with diversified and high-quality teaching services, aiming to support the training of a large number of high-quality technical talents.
As the number of students involving formal vocational education is ascending steadily, the average tuition fees are rising, and the target school struggles to promote non-formal vocational education, the performance of Target School is set to enter the harvest stage of operation in FY2022, further driving the Group’s overall performance.
Remarkable Synergy of Vocational Education Business at All Levels
Further Improve the School-running Scale and Education Brand
The acquisition enables prominent synergy of the Group’s vocational education business, not only broadens the Group’s school-running level, supplements the vocational education mechanism of Guangdong Schools but also builds asset barrier and expands asset portfolio for the Group, thus rising barrier to the education brand. At the same time, the positive circulation effect of Guangdong schools’ student pool and prominent education brand enable the Group to achieve high-quality and sustainable development.
With Huashang Technical School becoming a member school, the Group’s school-running quantity and quality will further be enhanced; on one hand, it enlarges the number of student enrolments, strengthen the revenue profitability of the Group; on the other hand, Huashang Technical School and other schools of the Group complement each other’s professional advantages and develop synergistically, continue to provide high-quality skilled talents for the society and raise the education brand.
Future Prospect
Looking into the future, the Group will closely follow the direction of national vocational policies, adhere to the principle of school-running with high compliance and high-quality, cooperate with industry-leading enterprises to nurture urgent-needed talents for the country, accelerate and deepen asset-light and asset-heavy operations of vocational education business to cultivate application-oriented, innovative and versatile high-end vocational talents with an international vision, as well as with social responsibility and the goal of serving the society and the country to facilitate the realization of the national targets of “ranking vocational education among the best globally and basically establishing a skilled society by 2035”.
About Edvantage Group Holdings Limited
Edvantage Group Holdings Limited (“Edvantage Group” or the “Group”, stock code: 0382.HK) is the largest private business-oriented higher and vocational education group in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (the “Greater Bay Area”) and an early mover in the education sector in pursuing international expansion, and it was listed on the Main Board of the Stock Exchange on 16 July 2019. Up to now, the Group has nearly 77,000 students in schools and owns a total of 9 private education institutions, namely Guangzhou Huashang College (application-oriented undergraduate education), Guangzhou Huashang Vocational College (higher formal vocational education), and Guangdong Huashang Technical School (secondary formal vocational education) in Guangdong province, China; Urban Vocational College of Sichuan (higher formal vocational education) and Urban Technician College of Sichuan (secondary formal vocational education) in Sichuan province, China; GBA Business School (GBABS) in Hong Kong, China; Global Business College of Australia (GBCA) and Edvantage Institute Australia (EIA) in Melbourne, Australia; and Edvantage Institute (Singapore) (“EIS”) in the downtown of Singapore.