Alantra advised Rising Tide Asia on the sale of Nobel Education

Nov 2017

Sell-side advisory

Alantra advised the Rising Tide Foundation (Rising Tide) on the cross-border sale of Nobel Education Network, a group of four international schools located in Vietnam, Austria, Oman and Portugal.

The group was established in 2010 and acquired by the Swiss-based foundation Rising Tide in 2014. After a period of growth and investment, the decision was made to exit and Alantra was appointed to support the shareholders achieve this objective. Working closely with Rising Tide and our international offices, we advised Rising Tide on their options which included identifying a range of credible and reputable buyers.

What difference did we make? Our review highlighted significant international appetite to invest in the school sector from both corporate acquirers and investors. Interest arising in South East Asia was particularly pronounced. It was determined that individual sales of the schools would be the most effective method of realising value and three separate transactions were completed. The most significant was the sale of the two largest K-12 international schools located in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam and the Algarve, Portugal.

The buyer was ChangedEdu, a global education platform backed by the European investment house Verlinvest. ChangedEdu was founded by former Cognita Asia Pacific CEO Brian Rogrove in 2016 and has already completed acquisitions in Europe, Asia and the US.