Raffles Education’s founder Chew Hua Seng has a lot going for him at the moment. Two weeks after announcing another stellar year of growth for his private education business – with net profit for financial year 2008 (FY08) doubling to $99 million – he was back in the media spotlight on September 11 2008, that time to launch the Chew Hua Seng Foundation which he has pledged $100 million to set up.

The money that will be injected over the next ten years will mainly be used to assist education-related causes in Singapore, China and the region. Thus far, the foundation has pledged $24 million and given away $4 million since its incorporation in November last year. Its motto is “Compassion Through the Generations” and for Mr Chew, this is his gesture of “paying it forward” to the next generation.

“I firmly believe that the best avenue to pay back to society is to provide educational opportunities to the underserved communities, to enable them to unlock their potential in life,” he says.

To that end, he has been providing bursaries and financial assistance to underprivileged youths to ensure that they “have the resources to stay in school and not have to worry about food and other basic necessities.

”Mr Chew was this year ranked by Forbes magazine as the 12th richest person in Singapore with an estimated net worth of $460 million. However, life in the early days was a far cry to the one he is now able to enjoy.

The son of a fisherman and the middle child out of eight children, he and his two elder brothers used to help their father fish every day after school. When sunset arrived, they would sort out the catch and subsequently lugged it 400 metres up a slope to the family’s home in Punggol, before packing them in ice.

At the crack of dawn, the brothers would then cycle to the market to help their parents sell the fi shes before heading to school.

“With such a large family, my parents struggled to make ends meet. Even providing three meals a day was a daily challenge,” he recalls.

ENTERING THE EDUCATION FIELD

From an early age, Mr Chew had a strong resolve to emerge from the state of poverty. After graduating from the University of Singapore (a precursor to the present day NUS) with a degree in business administration, he started his entrepreneurial career in the timber industry, before a meeting with the late Jacques Lefebvre of LaSalle College in 1990 prompted him to sink $375,000 into the design school that eventually became Raffles LaSalle.

“It was a fifteen-minute discussion and I went into partnership with him. At that point of time, it was a gamble for me but I also wanted to invest in design education. Back then, Singapore was a bit more sterile than now and I felt it was a good opportunity to venture into something out-of-the-box. In fact, we were the first in design,” he says.

Soon after, his timber business led him to China and he decided to bring the Raffles LaSalle concept there as well. Unfortunately, from 1992 to 1997, the school faced five consecutive years of losses in Shanghai which led to his partner pulling out and Mr Chew buying over the remaining stake.

“That was when I became more involved in the business, and in 1998 my timber business wasn’t doing very well so I spent most of my time with Raffles,” Mr Chew explains.

After several years of re-structuring the business and subsequently expanding it to nine other countries in the Asia-Pacific region, Raffles Education Corporation (REC) is now the largest private education group in Asia with three universities and 24 colleges. It offers degrees in design, business, hospitality, engineering and also life sciences.

For financial year 2008 (FY08) which ended June 30, the company’s net profit increased to a record-breaking $99.4 million, nearly doubling the $50.8 million recorded in FY07. Boosted by increased student enrollment, rise in school fees and contributions from the group’s recent acquisitions in China, REC’s revenue also grew 53 per cent to $190 million.

MOVING FORWARD

The company has grown leaps and bounds since it listed on the Singapore Exchange Mainboard in 2002 when it had 1,200 students under its wings. That number has since grown to nearly 31,000 and the group has the 100,000-student mark firmly in its sight.

While there have been plenty of challenges along the way, most persistent has been the restricting regulatory environment for private education in the different markets REC operates in.

“If governments support private education, then they would be on equal footing with public institutions, but most of the time, private education is taken as a ‘fill the gap’ sort of stuff and is not really in the mainstream. But then again, we’re not the only facing this problem, it’s applicable to everyone,” says Mr Chew.

It seems that REC has coped better than most other industry players as evidenced by its considerable presence in the Chinese market. Part of its expansion plan has been to enter into strategic partnerships with other institutions in China in order to penetrate the market.

For instance, its acquisition of Oriental University City – a 3.3 million square metre self-contained campus in Langfang, Hebei Province, China – earlier this year has paved the way for the establishment of the Langfang Oriental College, after it gained approval from the Hebei Province Education Bureau. The college, which is expected to commence in January 2009, will off er Advanced Diplomas in Fashion Design, Multimedia Design, Accounting, Business Management, Aviation Services and Logistics.

“The growth in China is not limited; you just have to be creative about it,” remarks Mr Chew. He adds: “We expect to get more approvals in China this year, so this year we’ll be doing a lot of organic growth.”

Earlier in May, REC also announced a joint-venture in India together with Educomp Solutions – the largest technology-driven education company there. The joint-venture will allow REC to gain a piece of the country’s lucrative post-secondary education market. Th e partnership is expected to start contributing to group earnings by 2010.

Evidently, REC has taken significant steps in recent months to strengthen its twin engines of growth – China and India. This puts the company in a “sweet spot” for growth according to Mr Chew.

“We now have China, India and Southeast Asia along with the experience and focus to succeed in these markets. We’re already there and ready to take advantage of any change in regulations to liberalise education, which will happen all over Asia. We have the operational experience to execute what we’re buying so we have a big advantage over other people,” he says.

With an industry that has shown its resilience despite economic threats, a proven track-record and a CEO with a knack of overcoming obstacles, Raffles Education is well- poised to remain perched at the top of the private education sector for some time to come.