News

Intermediate Capital Group has acquired PSB Academy, a Singapore-based private education institution. The seller was Baring Private Equity Asia. No financial terms were disclosed.

PRESS RELEASE

Hong Kong, London – Intermediate Capital Group (ICG) and funds affiliated with Baring Private Equity Asia (BPEA) today announced that ICG and funds managed by the ICG Group have acquired 100% of PSB Academy (PSB) from BPEA.

PSB is one of the largest independent tertiary education institutions in Singapore, with a 54- year track record. PSB delivers full-fledged tertiary degrees under the brands of renowned university partners in Australia and the UK. It operates two state-of-the-art campuses in Singapore as well as schools in Vietnam, Myanmar, and Indonesia.

Derrick Chang, CEO of PSB Academy, said: “Under BPEA’s ownership, PSB enjoyed a very successful period of growth, and is now on a clear growth trajectory riding on strong macro industry tailwinds. As Asia’s Future Academy, PSB has invested in infrastructure, advanced pedagogy, and deep partnerships with universities and industry. As a result, PSB continues to attract a growing and diverse group of local and international students, and to prepare our students to contribute to Asia’s New Economy.”

Christopher Heine, Senior Managing Director, Head of Equity and Mezzanine, Asia Pacific of ICG, said: “Education is a focus industry sector for ICG and PSB represents the second education related investment for ICG in the Asia Pacific region. PSB will serve as an attractive platform for additional acquisitions in education in collaboration with the PSB management team, which has demonstrated a strong track record of business growth. We look forward to building on our management partnership investment model in taking PSB to the next stage of development.”

Kenneth Cheong, Managing Director of BPEA, said: “The number of students enrolled across the PSB Group grew beyond 12,000 throughout our ownership, and we were pleased that PSB was able to leverage BPEA’s regional platform and education expertise to expand into neighbouring Southeast Asian countries like Indonesia, Vietnam, and Myanmar. After opening a new state-of-the-art campus in Singapore in 2017, we believe that PSB is well positioned to continue to the positive growth momentum established over the past few years.”

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About ICG
ICG is a specialist asset manager with over 28 years’ history.

The company manages €27.2bn* of assets in third party funds and proprietary capital, principally in closed-end funds. Its goal is to generate income and consistently high returns whilst protecting against investment downside. Investing across the capital structure, ICG combines flexible capital solutions, local access and insight with an entrepreneurial approach. ICG operates across four asset classes – corporate, capital market, real asset and secondary investments. In addition to growing existing strategies, the company is committed to innovation and pioneering new strategies across these asset classes where the market opportunity exists to deliver value to fund investors and increase shareholder value.

ICG is listed on the London Stock Exchange (ticker symbol: ICP). Further details are available at: www.icgam.com
*as at 30 September 2017

About Baring Private Equity Asia
Baring Private Equity Asia (BPEA) is one of the largest and most established private alternative investment firms in Asia, with total committed capital of over USD11 billion. The firm runs a pan-Asian investment program, sponsoring buyouts and providing growth capital to companies for expansion or acquisitions, as well as a private credit and a pan-Asian real estate private equity investment program. The firm has been investing in Asia since its formation in 1997 and has over 150 employees located across offices in Hong Kong, China, India, Indonesia, Japan and Singapore. BPEA currently has over 30 portfolio companies active across Asia with a total of 150,000 employees and sales of approximately USD28 billion in 2016.

For more information, please visit www.bpeasia.com

About PSB Academy
Once known as Singapore’s Productivity and Standards Board, PSB Academy is known today as “The Future Academy”, with an approach to education that focuses on what really matters: performance in the New Economy. The Academy was conferred “Best Private Education Institution in Singapore” by the Business Excellence and Research Group and earned a PRISM award for its

“Outstanding Overall Corporate Reputation programme” by the Institute of Public Relations Singapore. It hosts over 12,000 students from over 50 nationalities in its slate of certificate, diploma, degree and postgraduate programmes every year. Students from the Academy enjoy excellent graduation outcomes: Around nine in 10 local/international students found perm/temp employment within six months of graduation; six in 10 benefited from pay raises and/or career progression; and that graduates took 2.1 months on average to find employment.

Learn more at: www.psb-academy.edu.sg.