Acquisition of Engage Independent School in Madrid

Internationella Engelska Skolan i Sverige Holdings II AB (”Internationella Engelska Skolan” or ”IES”) has as of 7 June 2019 through its wholly-owned Spanish subsidiary International Education Partnership S.L (”IEP”) acquired 100% of the shares in Engage Independent School, a fee-paying private school in Majadahonda (Madrid), Spain.

The enterprise value for the operations amounts to approximately MEUR 2.4. The acquisition is financed through an equity contribution from IES of MEUR 2.4. The building is not part of the acquisition and will be rented. EBITDA for the school in the financial year 2018/19 is expected to be approximately MEUR 0.36.

Engage Independent School has 400 students aged from 3 to 18 years. It is a fee-based bilingual private school which is currently following the Spanish curriculum. The intention is to gradually transform the school to follow the UK curriculum, as with IEP’s other wholly-owned schools, starting with pre-school and primary school. The school is located in Majadahonda, which is an affluent and growing suburb of Madrid.

Cecilia Marlow, interim CEO for Internationella Engelska Skolan said: ”We continue to strengthen our position in bilingual education in Spain with the acquisition of the school in Majadahonda as our first school in the Madrid area. It is located in an expansive area and is a school with an excellent reputation and good academic results. We are planning to attract even more students to the school by further improving the academics results through the British style of teaching. We look forward to continuing development of this great school together with students and staff.”

With the acquisition of the school in Majadahonda, Internationella Engelska Skolan has five wholly-owned schools in Spain with a total of 2,550 students. In addition, IES owns 50% of IALE International School near Valencia which has approximately 640 students.

For more information please contact:

Emma Rheborg, Head of Communication & IR, IES
Telephone: + 46 768 511 540
E-mail: emma.rheborg@engelska.se

Internationella Engelska Skolan i Sverige Holdings II AB discloses the information provided herein pursuant to the EU’s Market Abuse Regulation and the Securities Markets Act. The information was submitted for publication, through the agency of the above contact, on 7 June 2019 at 12:15 CEST.  
   

About Internationella Engelska Skolan  

Internationella Engelska Skolan, IES, is one of the leading free school operators in Sweden with some 25,600 students at 36 schools, and about 3,200 students at its schools in Spain.

IES Sweden operates schools for students in grades F-12. Its main focus is grades 4-9, what is often called “middle school.” Within the compulsory school system in Sweden, IES is the leading independent operator, with 17 of the 20 largest free schools. IES’s results on the national tests in grade 9 are far above average in Sweden.

Internationella Engelska Skolan was founded in 1993 and is in its 26th year of operation. Throughout this period, its schools have been defined by the three core convictions of its founder, Mrs. Barbara Bergström:

• A safe and orderly environment, where teachers can teach and students learn.
• To command the English language − the key to the world.
• High academic expectations and targets.

Up to half of the teaching in IES schools in Sweden is in English, by native English speaking teachers. Over 800 teachers with qualified foreign teaching degrees are currently teaching in IES schools. They are mainly recruited from Canada, the USA, the UK and South Africa.

IES’s student base is in growing strongly. Over the past ten years, total operating income has increased organically by an average of 19% per year. In the most recent financial year 2017/18, which concluded on 30 June 2018, total operating income was MSEK 2,347.9, an increase of some 15% year on year. As of 31 March 2019, there were approximately 199,700 applications in the waiting list to secure a place in the Swedish schools for the current and forthcoming years.

Internationella Engelska Skolan has been listed on Nasdaq Stockholm Mid Cap, with the ticker ENG, since 2016. The largest (indirect) shareholders of IES are TA Associates of the US, which has close affiliations to leading universities and foundations in the US, and IES’s founder Barbara Bergström. At the end of February 2019, the 10 largest shareholders also included Paradigm Capital, Swedbank Robur fonder, the Third Swedish National Pension Fund, SEB fonder and AMF Försäkring & Fonder (owned jointly by LO, The Swedish Trade Union Confederation and the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise).

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