{"id":608791,"date":"2026-04-27T06:35:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-27T06:35:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/608791\/"},"modified":"2026-04-27T06:35:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-27T06:35:09","slug":"esf-reserves-reach-hk3-75-billion-even-as-government-subsidies-shrink","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/608791\/","title":{"rendered":"ESF reserves reach HK$3.75 billion, even as government subsidies shrink"},"content":{"rendered":"

The reserves of Hong Kong\u2019s largest international school group have more than tripled to HK$3.75 billion (US$480.8 million) in over a decade, even as it taps different income sources to offset shrinking government subsidies, the South China Morning Post has found by reviewing the organisation\u2019s annual reports.<\/p>\n

The English Schools Foundation<\/a> (ESF) also said in its annual report for the 2024-25 academic year that it expected increased competition for students and it would modernise its marketing strategies to attract the children of talent and investors settling in the city.<\/p>\n

The report showed that its net assets, which matched its reserves, reached a record HK$3.75 billion, surpassing Lingnan University\u2019s HK$2.65 billion and the Education University of Hong Kong\u2019s HK$2.04 billion for their 2024-25 financial year ending last June.<\/p>\n

The SCMP review of the ESF\u2019s financial reports found that its reserves were more than three times the HK$1.18 billion recorded in 2012-13 and had grown continually for more than 10 years.<\/p>\n

The reserves came from the group\u2019s operational surplus, which comprised tuition fee income and capital funds from nomination rights.<\/p>\n

In a reply to the SCMP, an ESF spokesman said: \u201cWe have to accumulate financial reserves that will allow us to renew, refresh and rebuild our schools when they require it. The overwhelming majority of our reserves are ring-fenced for this purpose.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The reserves of Hong Kong\u2019s largest international school group have more than tripled to HK$3.75 billion (US$480.8 million)…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":608792,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[28,101,264549,190440,264555,264550,264552,264551,5425,264554,264556,264553,58532,47334,34402],"class_list":["post-608791","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-economy","tag-education-in-hong-kong","tag-education-university-of-hong-kong","tag-english-schools-foundation","tag-esf","tag-esf-centre","tag-esf-explore","tag-hong-kong","tag-international-baccalaureate","tag-lingnan-university","tag-nomination-rights-schemes","tag-north-point","tag-tai-po","tag-tuen-mun"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608791","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=608791"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608791\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/608792"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=608791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=608791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=608791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}