Global investors from Tiger Global Management to Temasek Holdings Pte are reeling as China prepares to impose its harshest curbs yet on its US$100 billion ($136 billion) private tutoring and online education sector.
China is considering asking companies that offer tutoring on the school curriculum to go non-profit, people familiar told Bloomberg News, potentially wiping out a big chunk of the billions that private equity and venture capital funds have staked on a once red-hot sector.
In rules currently under debate, the platforms may lose their ability to raise capital or go public -- depriving their backers of the exits they need to cash out. And foreign capital could be banned from the sector, with uncertain ramifications for the likes of Singapore’s Temasek and GIC as well as Warburg Pincus and SoftBank’s Vision Fund that have all invested in many of the industry’s big players.
