Education Technology · Profile from Education Technology Research Companion
New Oriental Education & Technology Group Inc.
China's best-known private education company. Yu Minhong started it in 1993 as a TOEFL and GRE cram school in Beijing and took it to the NYSE in 2006 as the first Chinese private education company listed there. It became a K-12 tutoring giant, lost roughly 80% of that business overnight in the 2021 "double reduction" crackdown, kept itself in the news through the East Buy livestreaming pivot, and rebuilt revenue past its pre-crackdown peak on overseas test prep, study-abroad consulting, non-academic courses and learning devices.
At a glance
- Founded
- November 1993, Beijing (Beijing New Oriental School); group restructured as a shareholding company in 2001 and as an offshore holding company before the 2006 IPO
- Founders
- Yu Minhong (Michael Yu), with early partners Wang Qiang and Xu Xiaoping (Bob Xu), who joined in the mid-1990s and became the "troika" of the founding story
- Headquarters
- Haidian District, Beijing
- Ownership / structure
- Cayman Islands holding company controlling Chinese operating entities, historically through variable interest entity (VIE) arrangements; NYSE: EDU (IPO September 2006); secondary listing on HKEX: 9901 (November 2020); controlling stake in East Buy Holding (HKEX: 1797, formerly Koolearn)
- Leadership (2026)
- Yu Minhong, Executive Chairman; Zhou Chenggang (Chenggang Zhou), CEO since September 2016 (verify that he still holds the title in 2026); Stephen Zhihui Yang, Executive President and CFO
- Segment and buyer
- Consumer education in China and for Chinese students going abroad: overseas test prep (TOEFL, IELTS, GRE, SAT), study-abroad consulting, adult and university-student courses, non-academic "quality education" for children, learning devices, high-school tutoring, and livestream e-commerce through East Buy. Parents and adult learners pay directly
- Scale
- Net revenue US$5.66bn in fiscal 2026 (year ended May 31, 2026, +15.5%), above the pre-crackdown peak of ~$4.28bn (FY2021). FY2022 ~$3.10bn, FY2023 ~$3.00bn, FY2024 ~$4.31bn, FY2025 ~$4.90bn. Guidance for FY2027 is $6.45–6.68bn. Cumulative enrolments are reported in the tens of millions; the company had more than 1,500 learning centres before 2021 (reported)
- Capital raised / valuation / market cap
- NYSE IPO raised ~$112m (2006, reported); Hong Kong secondary listing raised ~HK$10.1bn (~US$1.31bn) base offering (2020). Market cap peaked at roughly US$30–35bn in early 2021 (reported), fell by ~90% after July 2021, and has traded at roughly US$7–12bn in 2024–26 (verify)
- Signature moves
- Founding as a test-prep school (1993); NYSE IPO (2006); surviving the Muddy Waters short report and SEC inquiry (2012); Koolearn Hong Kong IPO (2019); Hong Kong secondary listing (2020); exit from K-9 academic tutoring under double reduction (2021); Oriental Selection / East Buy livestreaming (2021–22); rebuild around test prep and non-academic courses (2022–26). Failures and controversies: 2012 short attack; repeated losses on online education before 2021; the 2023 Dong Yuhui host crisis at East Buy
9 strategic moves analysed
Each one gets a full strategy file in the companion: context, the decision, the financing, what happened, and the lesson.
1993
Founding Test Prep School
Launch (founding)
2006
NYSE IPO
IPO
2012
Muddy Waters Short Attack
Crisis response / governance (defence against a short report and a regulatory inquiry)
2019
Koolearn Hong Kong IPO
IPO (carve-out of a subsidiary)
2020
Hong Kong Secondary Listing
Secondary listing / equity raise
2021
Double Reduction Exit K9
Restructuring (forced exit from the core K-9 academic tutoring business)
2021
Oriental Selection Livestreaming
Pivot / launch
2022
Pivot to Test Prep and Non Academic
Pivot (rebuild of the core business after the double reduction)
2023
East Buy Host Crisis
Restructuring / governance (rebrand, management change and separation from the star host)