Education firm Wisdom to debut on Shenzhen-HK Stock Connect

Investors will be able to trade shares of Dongguan-headquartered privately owned educational group Wisdom Education International Holdings from Monday through the Shenzhen-HK Stock Connect.

The high-end privately owned educational group focuses largely on primary and middle school students in South China. It went public on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on Jan 26, 2017.

The company's share price surged 260 percent in 2017, rising from HK$1.7(27 cents) per share to HK$6.12. Among the 161 stocks newly listed on the Hong Kong bourse, Wisdom was rated among the top five in terms of share price performance last year.

Founded in 2002, Wisdom has built seven schools in the mainland - five in Guangdong province, one in North China's Liaoning province and one in East China's Shandong province - and has more than 41,000 enrolled students.

According to the company's chief operating officer Li Jiuchang, Wisdom has so far covered about 80 percent of the cities in Guangdong province. Although the company has no plan to set up a school in Shanghai at present, Li said they would seek opportunities in the city as it is an important base for the reform of nongovernment funded education in the Chinese mainland.

"We will continue to tap cities in the country's major economic belts," he said. "The next step is to increase our penetration rate in Shandong and Sichuan. We will continue to pursue quality projects in other regions in China."

The 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China had stressed that every child in the country should get a fair chance for quality education.

The country's amended Private Education Promotion Law took effect in September last year.

According to Chen Ge, executive director of UBS Securities in China, parents and students will make diversified demands on educators due to rapid urbanization and rising income levels.

With more private investments coming in, the education market in the country will see substantial growth in the following years, he said.