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Allen Career Institute and Bodhi Tree Systems announce strategic partnership

$600 million investment by Bodhi Tree will help scale India’s biggest and most successful test-prep company

ALLEN Career Institute (ALLEN) and Bodhi Tree Systems have recently announced a strategic partnership with the goal of building the world’s most admired and trusted education brand.

ALLEN is an education powerhouse with an unparalleled track record of success in the world’s most competitive college entrance examinations and Olympiads. ALLEN has a pan-India footprint with a growing presence in Middle East through 138 classroom centers in 46 cities, a team of highly dedicated and renowned faculty members, and a pedagogy that has been perfected over three decades. ALLEN’s partnership with Bodhi Tree Systems will build further on the test-prep offering and deliver at-scale positive impact for millions of students in test-prep and K12 segments, using technology as the core driver of value.

Bodhi Tree Systems is a newly formed platform between Lupa Systems founder and CEO James Murdoch and Uday Shankar, the former president of The Walt Disney Company Asia Pacific and former chairman of Star and Disney India. Bodhi Tree Systems will leverage its founders’ shared track record of building iconic consumer businesses to build ALLEN into a world-class digital education business of the future. Qatar Investment Authority (QIA), the sovereign wealth fund of the State of Qatar, is an investor in Bodhi Tree Systems.

Murdoch and Shankar said: “Education is a critical consumer need, driven by its deeply transformative impact on lives and livelihoods of consumers. We believe that education is on the cusp of a technology led renaissance that will fundamentally alter how education is imparted and will increase its efficacy. ALLEN’s unrivaled success and scale provide the right foundation to build the digital education company of the future. We are excited to work with the Maheshwari family to build an outcomes-focused digital education company that delivers on the aspirations of millions of learners and parents in India and beyond.”

Founded by Rajesh Maheshwari in 1988, ALLEN is India’s most respected test prep brand that has created a positive transformational impact on over 2.5 million young lives since its inception. Aspirants for engineering and medical college entrance exams have gained tremendously from ALLEN’s high-quality pedagogy, resulting in an unparalleled track record of selections in prestigious exams such as IIT JEE Mains and Advanced, NEET-UG, KVPY, and the Olympiads.

Govind Maheshwari, senior director, ALLEN, said: “Our decision to enter into this strategic partnership with Bodhi Tree is founded on shared values, principles and an aligned vision of creating societal impact at scale through education globally.”

Rajesh Maheshwari, said: "Since its inception, ALLEN has focused on providing high quality education to students to help them achieve their highest potential and fulfil their career aspirations. In the process, we have helped create hundreds of thousands of doctors and engineers, who contribute to building India and the society of today. Our partnership with Bodhi Tree is an essential ingredient in furthering our mission to significantly increase ALLEN’s reach and impact. We are quite pleased and excited that the Bodhi Tree team also sees value in combining their expertise with our experience in education."

Naveen Maheshwari, director, ALLEN, said: “The journey of ALLEN has been one of always giving back to the society. ALLEN’s student-centric caring system has been its highlight. We believe this partnership is only going to take our pedagogy, caring-system and values to a very wide student community which was not able to associate with ALLEN otherwise due to physical constraints.”

Brajesh Maheshwari, chairman-designate of the new board, ALLEN, said: "Most of the edtech products and services in the market are currently not solving for the needs of a student. With ALLEN’s time-tested pedagogy and Bodhi Tree’s track record in technology, the 2 T’s – ‘teaching’ and ‘technology’, will now come together to finally solve the problems of millions of students of outcome-driven learning in a tech-enabled environment.”

The transaction is expected to close within three months and is subject to closing conditions and requisite approvals. EY acted as the exclusive financial advisor. Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas provided legal advisory and documentation support to ALLEN. EY provided due diligence services to Bodhi Tree. AZB & Partners were the legal advisors to Bodhi Tree.