By Business Wirevia The Motley Fool
Filed under: Investing
CIBT Agrees to Buy Linkman International Language Institute in China
VANCOUVER, British Columbia–(BUSINESS WIRE)– CIBT Education Group Inc. (“CIBT“)(NYSE MKT LLC and TSX: MBA) announced today that it has signed an agreement to acquire all of the issued and outstanding shares of Linkman International Language Institute (“Linkman”). The agreement provides for the purchase funds to be paid into a wholly owned subsidiary of CIBT in Beijing so that the purchase funds may be used by Linkman for working capital purposes while allowing CIBT to have full control of the funds.
Linkman is a language institution in China specializing in English language training for students in primary and secondary school, and professional English for adults. Linkman will become CIBT‘s launching platform for its language subsidiary, KGIC International College. Linkman will change its name to KGIC English Academy, part of KGIC‘s branding strategy in China, which will provide KGIC with existing brand, business, infrastructure and local and experienced management to cost-effectively springboard its strategy of adding more English training schools in China.
“As CIBT Group’s new division, Global Education Alliance (“GEA“), is gaining excellent traction in its referral business by sending Chinese students to elite North American kindergarten to grade 12 schools, the acquisition of Linkman is timely,” commented by Toby Chu, Vice Chairman President and CEO of CIBT Education Group. “Due to the decades old One-Child Policy in China, many Chinese parents contribute significantly to their only child’s education, with a strong preference to sending their child to study abroad in North America. In recent months, GEA has referred over 50 students to its partner elite schools in Canada and the United States, with ages ranging from 5 to 15 years old, and these students and their parents pay over $25,000 a year in tuition fees and contribute another $25,000 to $30,000 in capital bonds to our partner schools. We are seeing an increasing and significant demand for this sector and the enrollment age is becoming younger. In view of the increasing volume of primary and secondary school enrollment, the need to establish a youth bridging program to overcome the language and culture barriers also increases. For these reasons, a Youth Bridging Program (“YBP“) was developed by KGIC, our language school subsidiary with 15 years of experience in this sector. Linkman and other CIBT subsidiaries in China will become the launching platform for the YBP. Since the introduction of our YBP program in March, we have been receiving significant interest from language schools all over China and other parts of Asia. These language schools are interested to offer our YBP to their existing students with a view to
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance