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Original title: Solicit opinions on the preschool bill to clearly stipulate “profit restrictions” and penalties. Is the securitization of preschool education out of the picture?
Feifei Drawing
⊙Reporter Xia Zihang ○ Editor Shao Hao
On September 7, the Ministry of Education publicly solicited opinions on the “Draft Preschool Education Law of the People’s Republic of China (Draft for Comments)” (hereinafter the “Draft for Comments”).
The comment draft is in line with the relevant laws and regulations above, further clarifying the social welfare commitments of preschool education. The securitization of preschool education is “difficult”. However, it is worth noting that the business related to initial education and early childhood education has not been affected at the moment.
List of “difficult” kindergarten
The draft for comments clearly states that preschool education is the initial stage of the school education system, an important part of the national education system, and a major social welfare enterprise. People’s governments at all levels must provide inclusive preschool education services to preschool children by establishing public kindergartens and supporting private kindergartens to provide fair and quality preschool education.
The comment draft shows that no organization or individual may use financial funds, state assets, or collective assets to run or maintain kindergartens for profit. Public kindergartens cannot be transformed into private kindergartens. Public kindergartens cannot manage or participate in the operation of private for-profit kindergartens and other educational institutions.
The difference between inclusive kindergartens and for-profit kindergartens is whether the funds remaining after deducting operating expenses can be considered as operator profit. The included kindergartens are obliged to collect the tuition fees and other fees applied to the kindergartens, and the remaining amount cannot exceed 2%.
Article 27 of the Draft Opinions clearly stipulates the “profit restriction”: public capital will not control public kindergartens and private non-profit kindergartens through mergers and acquisitions, commissioned operations, franchise chains, entities of variable interest and control of agreements. kindergarten.
At the same time, kindergartens should not be listed directly or indirectly as corporate assets. Listed companies and their controlling shareholders will not use capital market financing to invest in for-profit kindergartens and will not be able to purchase the assets of for-profit kindergartens by issuing shares or paying cash.
Article 71 of the draft opinion establishes penalties for violations of “profit restrictions”. If a public company commits one of the following acts, the management department of the public company will order the corrections. If there is illegal income, the illegal income will be confiscated and a fine of 300,000 yuan up to 1 million yuan may be imposed; the person directly responsible and the actual controller of the listed company, Majority shareholders give warnings and other sanctions: directly or indirectly list the assets of the kindergarten as corporate assets; invest in for-profit kindergartens through capital market financing; They buy kindergarten assets for profit by issuing shares or paying cash.
Listed companies have been divested
The “Various Opinions on the Deepening of the Reform and Standardization of Preschool Education” issued by the State Council in November 2018 clearly require that by 2020, the coverage rate of inclusive kindergartens (the proportion of kindergartens public kindergartens and inclusive private kindergartens) reach 80%. In principle, it reaches more than 50% at the national level; Social capital is not allowed to control non-profit kindergartens and kindergartens run by state or collective assets through mergers and acquisitions, commissioned operations, franchise chains, use of variable interest entities and control of agreements. Trading on the market alone or as part of the assets is not allowed; Publicly traded companies cannot invest in for-profit kindergartens through stock market financing, and they cannot buy for-profit kindergarten assets by issuing stocks or paying cash.
Following the publication of the above documents, many publicly traded companies have started or are considering divesting their preschool education assets.
Xiuqiang StockAt present, the main products are home appliance glass products, kitchen appliance glass products, etc. Since 2016 it has participated in the field of early childhood education through mergers and acquisitions. In June 2019, it divested the operation and management services business of the early childhood education entity in its core business. There is no income from the early childhood education business.
In December 2019,Vitron sharesAn announcement was issued to transfer 70% of Keer Education shares for 303 million yuan and stop owning Keer Education shares. According to the announcement, the reason for the transfer is that Keer Education primarily provides services such as kindergarten operation and management support. In view of the introduction of the new policy for the national preschool industry and the gradual implementation in various places, there is greater uncertainty in the future operation of Keer Education. .
At present, the child growth platform business, which is one of Vitron’s core businesses, is mainly comprised of three aspects: kindergarten services, kindergarten product sales, and diversified child growth scenarios. He is not directly involved in the operation of the kindergarten business.
Mei jimWith educational services as its core business, its subsidiary Tianjin Meijiemu owns the national high-end early education brand “Mejimu”. At the end of June this year, Tianjin Meijiemu has signed a total of 535 early education centers across the country. One of the leading companies with influence in the market.
However, among the education companies listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, many publicly traded companies have kindergarten assets and businesses.
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