KinderWorld Education Group Is Said to Consider Singapore IPO

FILE PHOTO: An employee works at a front desk of the Singapore Exchange head office in Singapore April 22, 2015. REUTERS/Edgar Su/File Photo

By Joyce Koh, Elffie Chew and Andrea Tan

KinderWorld Education Group, which runs schools across Southeast Asia, is considering a Singapore initial public offering that could raise about S$70 million ($53 million), people with knowledge of the matter said.

The company is working with advisers on a planned IPO that could value it at about S$300 million, according to the people, who asked not to be identified because the process is private. KinderWorld is aiming to sell shares as soon as the second half of the year, the people said.

Southeast Asian school operators have been attracting interest from foreign investors including TPG and Swedish buyout firm EQT Partners AB, which are betting that rising incomes will translate into increased education spending. A listing of KinderWorld would follow an IPO of MindChamps PreSchool Ltd. last year that raised S$49 million, data compiled by Bloomberg show.

Shares of MindChamps have fallen 1.2 percent since the company began trading in Singapore in November, trailing the 4.4 percent gain in the benchmark Straits Times Index.

KinderWorld was founded in 1986 in Singapore and expanded abroad starting in the late 1990s, its website shows. It now has 17 campuses in Vietnam, Malaysia and Thailand. The company’s Pegasus International College, based in Danang, Vietnam, provides post-secondary education courses in fields including hospitality, tourism and culinary arts, according to its website.

Deliberations on a listing of KinderWorld are at an early stage, and details of the potential offering could change, the people said. A representative for KinderWorld said there’s no comment.

Malaysia’s APIIT Education Group was sold to KV Asia Capital Pte and management this year in deal valuing the company at 725 million ringgit ($186 million) including debt. Last year, EQT Partners bought a stake in English-teaching school ILA Vietnam, while TPG invested in Vietnam Australia International School.

To contact the reporters on this story: Joyce Koh in Singapore at jkoh38@bloomberg.net; Elffie Chew in Kuala Lumpur at echew16@bloomberg.net; Andrea Tan in Singapore at atan17@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Ben Scent at bscent@bloomberg.net; Sam Mamudi at smamudi@bloomberg.net Timothy Sifert