Firms guide Bright Scholar Education privatisation | China

Bright Scholar Education Holdings, whose owners include the founding family of property developer Country Garden, has recently completed its privatisation and delisted from the NYSE. Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, Baker McKenzie, FenXun Partners, Conyers Dill & Pearman, King & Wood Mallesons and Appleby advised on the transaction.

Bright Scholar announced on 16 December 2025 that a buyer group had completed the privatisation of the company through a short-form merger, at a cash consideration of USD0.575 per share. Bright Scholar would become a wholly owned subsidiary of Excellence Education Investment, a member of the buyer gorup.

Gibson Dunn acted as US legal adviser to the special committee of Bright Scholar’s board of directors, with the team led by its Singapore office partner in charge Xue Fang and included Orange County partner Colin Davis. Baker McKenzie served as US legal adviser to Bright Scholar, led by Ouyang Dan, co-head of the Asia-Pacific and China capital markets practice, with support from FenXun partner Ronnie Li. Conyers advised on British Virgin Islands law, with a team including consultant David Lamb and counsel Beverly Cheung from its Hong Kong office.

KWM acted as lead counsel to the buyer group, providing comprehensive, one-stop legal services. The team included international partner Wang Xinghua from the firm’s Beijing and Shenzhen offices, as well as New York partner Liu Ning. Appleby counselled on Cayman Islands law to the buyer group, with the team led by David Bulley, managing partner of the firm’s Hong Kong and Shanghai offices, and Shanghai corporate partner Hannah Yao.

The buyer group comprised Bright Scholar chairman Zhou Hongru, chief executive officer Niu Ruolei, and three major shareholders that together held 78.2% of the company’s shares: Excellence Education Investment, Ultimate Wise Group and Sure Brilliant Global.

The three existing shareholders are linked to the Country Garden founding family. Excellence Education and Ultimate Wise are both incorporated in the British Virgin Islands, and indirectly wholly owned by TMF Trust (HK), the trustee of the Yeung Family Trust V established by Yang Meirong and Yang Huiyan. Sure Brilliant is a British Virgin Islands-incorporated company wholly owned by Yang Huiyan. Yang Meirong is the sister of Country Garden founder Yang Guoqiang, while Yang Huiyan is his daughter and currently serves as chair of Country Garden.

Bright Scholar traces its origins to the Country Garden School, founded in 1994. It was reorganised as Country Garden Education Group in 2014, rebranded as Bright Scholar in 2017 and listed on the NYSE the same year. Yang Huiyan previously served as chair of Bright Scholar and led its US initial public offering, before stepping down in November 2022 to succeed her father as chair of Country Garden.

In April 2022, Yang Huiyan and Yang Meirong had jointly formed a buyer group and proposed to privatise Bright Scholar at USD0.83 per share, but the proposal was withdrawn in December that year.