This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily, on October 5, 2015.

KUALA LUMPUR: KYS Education Group (KYSG), founded by businessman Tan Sri Halim Saad, is aiming for an initial public offering (IPO) to support its expansion plans, said sources familiar with the group’s plans.

The sources said, however, the group had yet to decide when to launch the IPO.

KYSG is principally involved in education, with its flagship private school Kolej Yayasan Saad located in Melaka. The flagship school was founded in 1995 by Halim. It has facilities for primary, secondary and tertiary foundation education.

KYS International College Sdn Bhd international programme director Datuk Kamaruddin Awang (pic) declined to comment on the goup’s IPO plans when met by reporters at a signing ceremony last Friday.

The academic unit of KYSG inked a collaboration agreement with eight universities in New Zealand (New Zealand Consortium Universities) to offer foundation courses jointly developed by the latter.

Kamaruddin said the four foundation programmes would be the first of their kind that had been accepted by all universities in New Zealand.

“We will send our first batch of students in 2017. Initially, we expect to send around 250 students, but our target will be 1,000 students annually. We believe we can achieve this target in two to three years,” Kamaruddin said.

Students for the new foundation programmes can choose from four courses, namely Foundation in Commerce, Foundation in Science, Foundation in Health Science and Foundation in Humanities.

They will have the option of studying in University of Otago, University of Auckland, Victoria University of Wellington, Massey University, University of Waikato, Auckland University of Technology, University of Canterbury or Lincoln University.

Currently, KYSG’s KYS Business School has a partnership for an accounting programme with Victoria University of Wellington, Auckland University and Canterbury University.

KYSG posted a revenue of RM25 million in the three months to June. With the latest collaboration programme, it is targeting to generate RM15 million more in revenue.

The sources told The Edge Financial Daily that the latest collaboration with New Zealand Consortium Universities is part of KYSG’s expansion ahead of its planned IPO.

Meanwhile, a source close to the group said KYSG is also in negotiations with a major property developer to set up a new school in Kuala Lumpur.

“Since last year, KYSG has been expanding its educational offerings into tertiary education. Right now, it is looking at preschool education. The goal is to provide a full-fledged one-stop centre for education — from preschool to primary, secondary and tertiary foundation,” the source said.

It is understood that the group is looking to spend RM60 million to set up the school with a capacity of 900 students.