Edvantage Group (0382.HK) announced successful college conversion
Renamed as Guangzhou Huashang College
“Huashang” brand deepened, Enrolment scale expanded, Cost structure optimised
 

[28 Dec 2020, Hong Kong] Edvantage Group Holdings Limited (“Edvantage Group” or the “Group”, stock code: 0382.HK), the largest private higher education group in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (“GBA”), is pleased to announce that the conversion of Huashang College Guangdong University of Finance and Economics (“Huashang College”) into a private higher education institution has been approved and  the college was renamed as Guangzhou Huashang College. The completion of Huashang College’s conversion will provide beneficial impacts to school running perspective and operational perspective of the Group. After the conversion, the college will have more autonomy in school running and establishment of school running model, more flexibility in establishment of professional courses, more resources to improve educational level. It will create beneficial conditions for the future school running level development of the Group. After completion of the conversion, it will also proactively raise the Group’s profitability and add value to its efficiency.

Founded in 2006, Huashang College has been adhering to the motto of “Establishing school of the century, Nurturing talents of the nation”, with the mission to develop professional talents in the GBA. The school running positioning of the Huashang College is to be an application-oriented higher education institution. Throughout the years, Huashang College has been focusing on business-related programmes to continuously output labours for the GBA. The successful conversion of Huashang College represents another landmark along the Group’s development. Huashang College, in its new name of Guangzhou Huashang College, will inherit and promote the distinguished brand of “Huashang” in another dimension, maintaining a steady and healthy development of its reputation.

In accordance with relevant laws and regulations including the Non-state Education Promotion Law of the PRC, Provisional Regulations relating to General Bachelor Degree College Establishment and proactively responding to the call of the PRC government, Huashang College has proactively carried out procedures to improve school  conditions and quality  After rigorous consideration conducted by experts from the High School Establishment Consideration Committee of Guangdong Province, eventually Huashang College was selected as one of the 4 approved colleges in Guangdong Province for conversion. This demonstrates the Ministry of Education’s recognition for the school quality and level of Huashang College as well as its confidence in Huashang College’s developed internal governance, continuously growing teaching team and eager cooperation in optimising the conversion project.

Since the announcement of acquiring two schools in Chengdu, Sichuan, the Group has stepped into a high-speed development to robustly promote the full-time academic and vocational education businesses with both endogenous growth as well as outreach mergers and acquisitions (M&A). The post-conversion Huashang College is expected to provide more high-quality bachelor degree capacity and proactively expand the scale of student enrolment, by utilising the massive source of students in Guangdong Province as well as the multi-layered favourable policy which enabled full-time academic programmes to recruit additional students, thus creating advantageous conditions for the Group’s revenue growth. Meanwhile, the school conditions of Huashang College will also be immensely enhanced, as Sihui Campus, the new site for its bachelor’s degrees, commences operation.

For the school year 2020/21, Huashang College paid approximately RMB86 million of student management fees to Guangdong University of Finance and Economics; however, after the conversion, starting from the school year 2021/22, no management fees will be incurred for student recruitment in the name of Guangzhou Huashang College. Guangzhou Huashang College will merely be responsible for management fees in regard to bachelor’s students at Huashang College Guangdong University of Finance and Economics. Such fees will diminish year by year and eventually reduced to zero in the school year 2024/25, as the Group estimated, benefitting three figures, namely cost, gross profit and net profit. The reduction in cost will allow the Group to deploy more resources in programme development, campus construction and acquisitions, thus continuously enhancing its school conditions.

As one of the first independent colleges approved for conversion, the Group has taken an active role to align with the nation in promoting conversion work and closely follow relevant policies to boost equity in education as well as the healthy development of higher education in China. Moreover, this successful conversion will favour the Group in multi directions, extensively reinforcing its revenue and brand influence. Despite the conversion, Huashang College will still maintain a decent and continuous cooperation with Guangdong University of Finance and Economics. Such cooperation will include co-construction of research institutes and external social services. Looking forward, the Group will be dedicated to ensuring orderly daily education throughout the conversion and, sticking to the conversion scheme, proactively cooperate with each party, hence continuously embrace the motto of “Establishing school of the century, Nurturing talents of the nation” and reciprocate students, parents and investors.

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