ABC Learning
 |
|
| Public company | |
| Traded as | ASX: ABS |
| Industry | Early Childhood Education |
| Fate | voluntary liquidated in 2009, acquired by Goodstart Early Learning |
| Successor | Goodstart Early Learning |
| Founded | 1988 |
| Defunct | 2010 |
| Headquarters | Brisbane, Australia |
|
Key people
|
Eddy Groves, CEO |
| Owner | Goodstart Early Learning |
ABC Learning was an Australian company that was once the world's largest provider of early childhood education services. It was listed on the Australian Securities Exchange with its market capitalisation reaching A$2.5 billion in March 2006. The company went into administrative receivership after a fallout from the subprime mortgage crisis caused debt repayments to overwhelm the company, and the auditors failed to sign off on the financial reports citing the need to recast previous year's reported profits.
ABC Learning went into voluntary liquidation in 2008 and was bought by Goodstart Limited in December 2009. Goodstart was created by a partnership of organisations; The Benevolent Society, Mission Australia, the Brotherhood of St Laurence and Social Ventures Australia. It now operates over 650 former ABC Learning centres across Australia.
ABC Developmental Learning Centres was founded in 1988 in Ashgrove, Brisbane, Queensland. ABC rapidly expanded, reaching 43 childcare centres by 30 June 2001. By November 2005, it had 697 Early Childhood Education centres throughout Australia and New Zealand. In March 2006, it forecast that would have 950 centres in Australia and New Zealand by 30 June 2006.
In 2005, ABC purchased the third largest childcare operator in the United States- Learning Care Group Inc. which itself operated 467 centres in the US and other educational facilities in south-east Asia. The purchase provided ABC Learning with 70,000 additional licensed childcare places in addition to the 50,000 it had previously. Other mergers with Peppercorn Management Group and the purchase of Child Care Centres Australia helped provide a considerable increase in the number of ABC's centres.
At that time, the company planned to increase its number of centres by four a week. In March 2006, ABC announced a bid for Kids Campus, one of its few remaining large competitors in Australia, which would give it over another 100 centres.
On 12 December 2006, it was announced that ABC would acquire the second largest child care provider in the United States, Chicago based La Petite Academy for 330 million US dollars as well as the 5th largest provider in the United Kingdom, Busy Bees Group, Ltd. With these acquisitions they expanded into the UK market and increased their market share in the US to 1%.
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Wikipedia