Increases Investment in School Operations to Drive Steady Growth in Results Deepens the Integration of Industry and Education to Promote High-quality Development of Vocational Education
Highlights（Unaudited relevant data for the six months ended 29 February 2024）
- Revenue increased by 19.3% YoY to approximately RMB1,160.2 million;
- Gross profit rose by 17.5% YoY to approximately RMB578.0 million;
- Profit for the period attributable to owners of the Company rose by 13.2% YoY to approximately RMB338.2 million;
- Number of student enrolments increased by 12.3% over the corresponding period of last year to 96,100;
- Cash and cash equivalents amounted to RMB1,491.0 million, indicating ample liquidity;
- Interim dividend per share of 9.6 HK cents with a dividend payout ratio of 30%.
Edvantage Group Holdings Limited (Edvantage Group or the Group, HKG: 0382) has announced its unaudited FY2024 Interim Results for the six months ended 29 February 2024 (the Reporting Period). During the Reporting Period, by actively responding to national policies and closely following the market demand and industry development trends, the Group continued to increase its investment in school operations, deepened the integration of industry and education and school-enterprise cooperation, and continuously optimized the layout of vocational education disciplines, so as to realize sustainable development in the seamless connection of education and employment, thereby achieving steady improvement in results.
During the Reporting Period, the Group’s revenue was approximately RMB1,160.2 million, representing an increase of 19.3% over the corresponding period of the preceding year, mainly due to the increase in the number of students enrolled in the Group’s domestic schools. Profit for the period attributable to owners of the Company rose by 13.2% YoY to approximately RMB338.2 million. The Group’s cash and cash equivalents amounted to RMB1,491.0 million, indicating ample liquidity. The number of students enrolled in the Group’s schools continued to rise to new heights, reaching approximately 96,000. The Board of Directors of the Group has recommended the payment of an interim dividend of HK9.6 cents per share for the six months ended 29 February 2024, representing a dividend payout ratio of 30%.
From left to right: Mr. Yan Kwok Ting Sunny, Director of Investment, Corporate Finance & Investor Relations Department;
Ms. Liu Wenqi, Chief Operating Officer; Ms. Liu Yi Man, Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer;
Mr. Liu Yuk Tung, Chief Financial Officer.
Optimizing the layout of vocational education disciplines and realizing the seamless integration of education and employment
In recent years, the Group has established its presence in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area and the Chengdu-Chongqing Economic Circle, and expanded across the country and around the world. In line with the current trend and taking into consideration the industrial development and market demand, the Group has actively explored the new collaborative education model between “schools, communities and enterprises” to cultivate inter-disciplinary skilled application-oriented talents in high demand in the market. To address the talent demands of national strategic emerging industries and emerging innovative industries, the Group fully leveraged the advantages of its schools in multi-disciplinary development, covering economics, management, liberal arts, engineering, arts, education, science, and medicine, and improved the discipline layout by actively offering market-needed disciplines, such as artificial intelligence, cloud computing, big data, new energy, dentistry, animation and design, digital economics, etc. Meanwhile, with the aim of achieving a “seamless transition” from academics to employment and bridging the gap between on-campus education and internship, the Group has newly established digital commerce and industrial college, animation and gaming industry college, Guangdong rural leisure industry college and other colleges, etc., and has forged school-enterprise cooperation with over 1,000 large enterprises, including Huawei, CMGE, Bosch, Oracle, JD.com and iFLYTEK during the Reporting Period.
Closely following national policies and focusing on connotation development
Recognition of outstanding educational achievements
Since its establishment, the Group has actively responded to national policies, kept abreast of market demand and industry development trends, and continued to increase its investment in the running of schools. During the Reporting Period, Guangzhou Huashang Vocational College was successfully approved to set up the Doctoral Workstation of Guangdong Province, making it the only private higher vocational college among the batch of approved organizations. Meanwhile, by strengthening teacher training, raising teacher remuneration, optimizing teacher appraisal mechanisms and other measures, the Group provides solid guarantees for the high-quality development of its schools. In addition, the Group has also embarked on campus construction, renovation and upgrading of training facilities and equipment to create a high-quality educational environment and realize a steady improvement in benefits. With optimized connotation development, the operational strengths of the Group’s colleges has also improved significantly, enabling the Group to deliver outstanding educational performance. During the Reporting Period, a new breakthrough was achieved again in the construction of first-class program at Guangzhou Huashang College, with a total of seven programs selected as first-class undergraduate programs at the provincial level. Guangzhou Huashang Vocational College was awarded the “National Exemplary Vocational College of 2023” by Tencent News on the basis of unique teaching concepts and outstanding educational achievements, and Urban Vocational College of Sichuan was ranked fourth in China and first in Sichuan in the 2024 GDI Top 100 Private Higher Vocational Colleges, and ranked ninth in China and first in Sichuan in terms of the number of scientific research projects launched by higher vocational education colleges in 2023. Therefore, it can be seen that through the continuous improvement in connotation development, the Group’s colleges have been able to reap greater synergies and build a stronger reputation for school operations. High-quality education has also become a strong driver for promoting sustainable and healthy growth in the Group’s results.
Future Prospects
Looking ahead, with strong government policy support and over 20 years of experience in private education, the Group will continue to deepen the integration of industry and education and school-enterprise cooperation, and keep pace with the development of the country’s strategic emerging industry clusters. Driven by the development of core disciplines and discipline groups, the Group will vigorously develop new and cross-disciplines, such as artificial intelligence, digital economy, financial science and technology, healthcare and elderly care, etc. In order to promote the optimization and upgrading of the schools’ disciplines and cultivate a new generation of high-quality and application-oriented talents with international vision, thus making positive contributions to laying a solid foundation of talents for the realization of national strategic goals and promoting the high-quality development of vocational education.
About Edvantage Group Holdings Limited
Edvantage Group Holdings Limited (Edvantage Group or the Group, HKG: 0382) is the largest private business higher education and vocational education group in the Greater Bay Area, and an early mover in education sector in pursuing international expansion, listed in Hong Kong Main Board on 16 July 2019. The total number of full-time student enrolments of the Group was approximately 96,100 as of 29 February 2024. Operated 9 private education institutions, namely, Guangzhou Huashang College (Applied Undergraduate), Guangzhou Huashang Vocational College (Higher Vocational Education) and Guangdong Huashang Technical School (Secondary Vocational Education) located in Guangdong Province, the PRC; Urban Vocational College of Sichuan (Higher Vocational Education) and Urban Technician College of Sichuan (Secondary Vocational Education) in Sichuan Province, the PRC; GBA Business School (GBABS) in Hong Kong, the PRC; Global Business College of Australia (GBCA) and Edvantage Institute Australia (EIA) in Australia; as well as Edvantage Institute (Singapore) (EIS) in the downtown of Singapore.
While focusing on school operations, the Group also actively fulfil corporate social responsibility, extensively contributing to social welfare programmes including charity, poverty alleviation, education and revitalisation, in order to take the initiative in repaying society through action. Since its listing, the Group has made outstanding contributions in the field of ESG and has won the “Best ESG Innovation Award” from Zhitong Finance, the “ESG Leader Award” from Gelonghui, and the “Highest Investor Attention Award” from Huashengtong in 2023.