Tamil Nadu-based The Indian Public School (TIPS) has acquired South Hills Academy, a Los Angeles-based school for $10 million (Rs 54.3 crore). This acquisition will help TIPS to expand its presence globally.
Started in 1957, South Hills Academy is located in a five-acre campus and offers accelerated learning with an advanced math and science programme and following the Baccalaureate system, wherein student are deputed to foreign countries for short stints. South Hills , which also offers preschool, elementary,junior and high school programmes, will now be known as TIPS South Hills Academy.
TIPS runs a chain of international baccalaureate (IB) education system schools in India and also offers professional development programmes. Currently IB works with 3,456 schools in 143 countries to develop and offer four challenging programmes to over 1,041,000 students aged 3 to 19. TIPS, which has 10 campuses in Tamil Nadu and Kerala, plans to start 20 more schools in India and ten abroad in five years.
This is the first overseas acquisition in the education space by an Indian firm in more than three years. A little over half a dozen outbound M&A deals were struck during 2006-09. However, education has been one of the hot sectors for private equity investors in India. Over the past 12 months, as many as 24 deals worth $147 million were struck in India, according to VCCEdge, the financial research platform of VCCircle.
In India, there are 96 IB world schools offering one or more of the three IB programmes, including Aditya Birla World Academy (Mumbai), American Embassy School (New Delhi), American Embassy School (Haryana) and Chennai Public School (Tamil Nadu). The first school was authorized in 1976, according to the International Baccalaureate website.
(Edited by Prem Udayabhanu)
