Jan 9 2014
CIBT Education Group Inc. (“CIBT Group”) is pleased to announce that its newly established student housing investment and management arm, Global Education City Holdings Inc. (“GEC”) has signed a memorandum of understanding (“MOU”) with a Vancouver real estate developer to establish two student housing projects in Vancouver and Richmond respectively. These two new projects are named GEC Langara and GEC Capstan. The aggregate development budget for these two projects is $48 million.
GEC Langara is planned to consist of approximately 95 apartment rental units with two bedrooms, one bath and a full kitchen totaling 234 beds. GEC Langara is expected to be able to accommodate 234 students during the academic season from September to June, and 468 students during the summer camp season from July to August with double occupancy per room.
GEC Capstan is planned to consist of 62 student hotel suites capable of accommodating 124 students during the academic season from September to June, and 248 students during the summer camp season from July to August.
As a leading education provider with a special focus on international education for 20 years, CIBT Group is transforming and expanding its business model to vertically and horizontally integrating a full array of student services from education to student housing and international student recruitment services.
In 2012, CIBT Group expanded its education services from operating career colleges and university in Canada and Asia, to a new student recruitment division called Global Education Alliance (“GEA”). Since inception, GEA has achieved significant traction by recruiting a large number of international students to study at GEA partner schools in North America as well as CIBT Group subsidiary schools in Canada. In addition, GEA successfully signed recruit agreements with 20 public and private schools covering the entire education infrastructure from public and private kindergartens to primary schools, secondary schools, career colleges, language schools and universities. Additional agreements with 10 other schools are under negotiation. Through GEA’s partnership arrangement with these schools, as well as CIBT Group’s wholly owned subsidiary schools in Canada and Asia, CIBT Group has access to over 20,000 international students studying in Vancouver, each paying approximately $10 - $12,000 per month for their housing needs, totaling over $200 million in housing revenue per year. CIBT Group’s integrated strategy is to create a global recruitment platform and pipeline to attract international students to study in North America while utilizing CIBT’s international housing division as part of the enhanced strategy to attract foreign students to pursue world class education in Canada coupled with a safe, secure and comfortable living experience in Vancouver.
Based upon data from 2011, approximately 100,000 foreign students are living in the Greater Vancouver area contributing over $5 billion in tuition revenue to the B.C. economy. In addition, total housing revenue generated by these foreign students is estimated to be over $1 billion per year, an average of $10,000 per student per year. This figure excludes domestic Canadian students wishing to migrate from other provinces to study in Vancouver.
“According to statistic and government data, we foresee the growth of the foreign student market as substantial,” commented Toby Chu, Vice Chairman, President and CEO of CIBT Group. “We feel that our initial three projects including the GEC Education Super Center in Richmond, GEC Capstan and GEC Langara can only supply a small fraction of a significant demand. CIBT Group is now actively pursuing a number of new GEC locations along the Vancouver Skytrain route in the Greater Vancouver area. Our initial plan is to build student housing to accommodate 1,400 foreign students which will serve less than 1.4% of the total foreign student population in Vancouver.”