Kuala Lumpur
Taylor's Schools Agrees Bangkok Deal and Eyes 15-School Southeast Asia Network
The KKR-backed Malaysian group is acquiring three Bangkok schools from a family operator and targeting Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City next, its new chief executive says, even as she warns both cities are growing crowded with British names.
Taylor's Schools, the KKR-backed Malaysian education group, has agreed to acquire three Bangkok schools from a small family operator, according to an interview in Tes with chief executive Angelina Tee, in what would be the group's first step into Thailand and its most significant expansion since private equity capital arrived in 2021.
The three schools serve pupils from kindergarten to Year 9. For Taylor's, which already runs eleven institutions across Malaysia and Vietnam, the deal offers an immediate presence in a market where Dulwich College, Wycombe Abbey and Highgate have all opened or signed new campus agreements in the past two years.
Fifteen schools in five years
Tee, who took up the chief executive role in January 2026 and is among the first women to lead a major international school group in the region, described plans to reach fifteen schools across Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore and Malaysia within five years. Vietnam is next: the group is targeting openings in both Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City by 2027.
She was candid about the competitive landscape. Ho Chi Minh City has become "quite flooded recently with British brand names," she said, while Bangkok is "already quite saturated." Taylor's pitch is differentiation, building on the model it has developed at Garden International School in Kuala Lumpur over decades, where the emphasis is on blending international curriculum rigour with regional cultural grounding rather than leading on UK brand prestige alone.
A broad portfolio and PE backing
KKR took a minority stake in Taylor's Schools in late 2021, and the group's current portfolio spans Garden International School, Nexus International Schools, Taylor's International Schools and British University Vietnam, among others. In June, the group also took a strategic stake in SenTia School in Hanoi, its first direct investment in Vietnam's K-12 market, a deal that gives Tee a base from which to build the wider Vietnam presence she is now describing. Whether the Bangkok schools, once integrated, can be repositioned upmarket in a crowded city will be an early test of her strategy.