EuroKids Preschool Chain May Soon Be Acquired

As we all know education today has become a big business. Even the smallest and the most congested towns and cities have thousands of schools and colleges. Lately, it has come to notice that the General Atlantic and KKR & Co. are in continuous negotiations to acquire almost 75% stake in preschool chains namely Euro Kids, Kangaroo Kids, and Billabong High. EuroKids owns Kangaroo Kids and Billabong High. Alongside, the PE funds are in conversation with domestic private equity fund Gaja Capital and Swiss funds partners group. These are assumed to be valued at 200 million dollars.

The EuroKids network is as wide as 1000 schools. The others who have shown their interest include Blackstone Group and Baring Private Equity Asia. As per the reports of Education Times in September, PE funds had put their stake in EuroKids on the block and have hired Avendus Capital. Most of the investors who had made investments until now are looking forward to sell off their investments; on the other hand the promoters wish to stay with the company as minority shareholders. The EuroKids group was founded and managed by Prajodh Rajan and Vikas Phadnis in the year 2001. The group manages its schools and operates as franchise model in India. The total revenue of the group reached around Rs. 350 cr. in the FY 2018. Last year, EuroKids, which is an 11 year old group, had acquired preschool chain Kangaroo Kids and Billabong High International Schools. Kangaroo Kids consists of a network of 79 preschools, on the contrary, Billabong High is a network of 21 schools. The preschools market is really huge and has a lot of competition. In the preschool market, the major competitors of EuroKids are Amelio, Kidzee, Little Elly, Lily Candies, Little Einsteins etc. EuroKids has a network of around 90,000 schools enrolled. In the last year, this figure was only 84,126. EuroKids is spread in over 360 towns in India along with Nepal and Bangladesh. EuroSchool runs a chain of 10-12K schools in 6 Indian schools. Billabong is also present in Qatar, Dubai, Maldives and Saudi Arabia.

By: Anuja Arora

Content: https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/services/education/ga-kkr-in-talks-to-acquire-eurokids-preschool-chains/articleshow/67222054.cms?UTM_Source=Google_Newsstand&UTM_Campaign=RSS_Feed&UTM_Medium=Referral