TAL Education Group to Acquire Firstleap Education

News provided by

Sep 20, 2015, 11:00 ET

BEIJING, Sept. 20, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- TAL Education Group (NYSE: XRS) ("TAL" or the "Company"), a leading K-12 after-school tutoring services provider in China, announced today that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Firstleap Education ("Firstleap"), which provides all-subject tutoring service in English in China to children aged from 2 to 15 years old.

Founded in 2009, Firstleap provides all-subject tutoring service in English in China to children aged from 2 to 15 years old through both its online platform www.firstleap.cn and over 60 learning centers. It now serves more than 20,000 students in over 20 cities in China and maintains high retention rate and customer satisfaction rate.

"We are excited about our acquisition of Firstleap as we believe it will complement and extend our tutoring service offerings in the pre-K to college space, as well as help us gain more insight into childhood development and learning," said TAL's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Bangxin Zhang. "Firstleap has built a strong online-to-offline platform offering comprehensive tutoring services to children. This acquisition aligns well with our vision to position TAL at the intersection of where education meets technology. After the acquisition, we plan to keep Firstleap as a separate brand for independent operation within the company structure. Firstleap will continue to provide practical English training focusing on qualitative development in the live context, as is the latest trend in English tutoring. Our organic small class Lejiale English business will be specialized in exam-oriented English subject tutoring, while our other proprietary brand Lewaijiao will provide online one-on-one oral English tutoring by native English speaking teachers. The separate brands will also work together with Shunshun Liuxue, the online C2C overseas studies consulting platform in which we have invested recently. We expect to see all these separate brands to grow into integrated businesses under the TAL umbrella."

The total consideration for this acquisition is not disclosed for reasons of commercial sensitivity.

Safe Harbor Statement

This announcement contains forward-looking statements. These statements are made under the "safe harbor" provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements can be identified by terminology such as "will," "expects," "anticipates," "future," "intends," "plans," "believes," "estimates" and similar statements. Among other things, quotations from management in this announcement, as well as TAL Education Group's strategic and operational plans, contain forward-looking statements. The Company may also make written or oral forward-looking statements in its reports filed with, or furnished to, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, in its annual reports to shareholders, in press releases and other written materials and in oral statements made by its officers, directors or employees to third parties. Statements that are not historical facts, including statements about the Company's beliefs and expectations, are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements involve inherent risks and uncertainties. A number of factors could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statement, including but not limited to the following: its ability to continue to attract students to enroll in its courses; its ability to continue to recruit, train and retain qualified teachers; its ability to improve the content of its existing course offerings and to develop new courses; its ability to maintain and enhance its brand; its ability to maintain and continue to improve its teaching results; and its ability to compete effectively against its competitors. Further information regarding these and other risks is included in the Company's reports filed with, or furnished to the Securities and Exchange Commission. All information provided in this press release and in the attachments is as of the date of this press release, and TAL Education Group undertakes no duty to update such information or any forward-looking statement, except as required under applicable law.

About TAL Education Group

TAL Education Group is a leading K-12 after-school tutoring services provider in China. The acronym "TAL" stands for "Tomorrow Advancing Life," which reflects our vision to promote top learning opportunities for Chinese students through both high-quality teaching and content, as well as leading edge application of technology in the education experience. TAL Education Group offers comprehensive tutoring services to students from pre-school to the twelfth grade through three flexible class formats: small classes, personalized premium services, and online courses. Our tutoring services cover the core academic subjects in China's school curriculum including mathematics, English, Chinese, physics, chemistry, and biology. The Company's learning center network includes 303 physical learning centers as of May 31, 2015, located in 19 key cities in China: Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Tianjin, Wuhan, Xi`an, Chengdu, Nanjing, Hangzhou, Taiyuan, Zhengzhou, Chongqing, Suzhou, Shenyang, Jinan, Shijiazhuang, Qingdao and Changsha. We also operate www.jzb.com, a leading online education platform in China. Our ADSs trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol "XRS."