China’s sweeping overhaul of its $100bn private education industry will eliminate foreign investors from much of the sector and threatens to wipe out billions of dollars of investment from groups such as BlackRock, Baillie Gifford, Tencent, Sequoia and SoftBank’s Vision Fund.
The regulations will ban companies that teach school curriculum subjects from making profits, raising capital or listing on stock exchanges worldwide, and will prevent them from accepting foreign investment.
The move could fundamentally damage a sector that has boomed in recent years, resulting in hefty valuations for the three largest US-listed groups, TAL Education, New Oriental Education and Gaotu Techedu.