Global Schools Group: Building Schools of the Future

Gaurav Pant, Partner, Hybrid Value, Asia Pacific: Global Schools is a private international education group headquartered in Singapore, which is now present in about 13 countries and 40+ campuses.

Atul Temurnikar, Cofounder & Executive Chairman, Global Schools Foundation: We work on building a holistic citizen by incorporating programs which are holistic and wide in nature. We started in 2002 with one school, 48 students, just at the back of the Presidential Palace and that’s how the journey began.

We wanted to create an institution that would match with some of the best schools in the world. We were thinking about if we could line up some capital, we should be able to do some growth through inorganic acquisitions and that’s where we got talking to Apollo.

Gaurav Pant: We have known the management team, they have seen what Apollo can offer in terms of our capabilities.

Matthew Michelini, Partner, Head of Asia Pacific: They wanted to take the business to a different scale. And so when Global Schools was out looking for a capital partner, they ultimately chose Apollo because we know schools quite well, we’ve invested in schools in the US, so we’re able to leverage that expertise to help inform our deal teams here about how to provide real strategic insight into how to grow the business.

Atul Temurnikar: When we first did this in 2021, it was a welcome change for us because it made our balance sheets very light. And when we took a further top up on that, it also made it easier for us to call for more capital because it was the right instrument that was helping us.

We switched from a debt instrument to a hybrid instrument. We liked the fact that it had equity-type treatment, allowing us to be able to size up our debts on our balance sheets.

Gaurav Pant: What Apollo offers to them is the capability that we can expand into markets like Japan and Korea, expand into markets like London, where we have businesses.

Matthew Michelini: And then we were able to help with capital strategy, M&A strategy, integration strategy, management succession planning over the course of time as the business got larger.

Atul Temurnikar: So here, it's almost like we work as one team. I think the Apollo team in Singapore has given us great pride in working with them and a lot of comforts and truly, they are a team that is helping us to remain focused on our growth.

Gaurav Pant: We are very proud to say that Global Schools has been consistently ranked — not only in this region, but also globally — in terms of the academic outcomes which they achieved.

Atul Temurnikar: The future for the Global Schools lies in what we call ‘The School of the Future.’ These are schools which are going to be shifting the concept of education from just pure education into learning experiences for students.

Matthew Michelini: As Asian companies are getting bigger, as they're getting more global, as their demands for capital require more flexibility, that’s when Apollo can really step in and provide tailored solutions in scale.