Apax Leaders asks for debt deferment for another 1.5 years

After nearly a month of delaying payments to parents in the South, Apax Leaders has proposed a repayment schedule extending to the end of 2025, more than 1.5 years longer than previously committed.

On November 4th, Apax Leaders sent out an apology to parents who had not yet received their tuition refunds. Apax explained that the previous commitment to repay the debt was made hastily, without anticipating all the potential difficulties.

The new repayment schedule proposed by Apax involves paying 5% of the debt each time on December 31st and April 28th, 2024. From July 2024, Apax Leaders will pay 5% of the remaining amount each month until the debt is fully repaid. Payments must be transferred no later than the 30th of each month. For parents who wish for their children to continue their studies, the company will expedite the reopening of its centers to serve them.

According to this schedule, parents will only receive 100% of their tuition fee debt from Apax Leaders by the end of December 2025, instead of April 2024 as initially promised.

Parents waited outside the Apax center in Phu Nhuan district to demand their money back on October 12th. Photo: Nguyen Le. — Parents waited outside the Apax center in Phu Nhuan district to demand their money back on October 12th. Photo: *Nguyen Le.*

Ms. Huong from District 7 said she does not accept this plan from Apax Leaders. Parents only agree to the roadmap that was agreed upon in the meeting last April.

"Parents have lost faith in Apax Leaders, and there's no guarantee they will keep their promises," Ms. Huong said.

Similarly, Mr. Phuoc from District 3 said he would continue to petition the Department of Education and Training and other relevant authorities because Apax Leaders had not fulfilled its commitments.

In 2020 and 2021, many parents paid for their children's English classes at Apax Leaders' system, but the program was interrupted due to center closures. After numerous negotiations, Apax divided them into two groups with different repayment schedules. To date, many parents in Group 1 have received their full refunds in three installments, spanning from June to August.

Group two was promised a tuition refund in 5 installments, each 20%. According to the commitment minutes from the Apax Southern Parents' General Meeting on April 9th, the first payment for Group 2 will be on October 9th. The remaining payments will be on November 20th, December 2023, and March/April 2024.

However, by October 12th, the second group of parents still hadn't received their money. Hundreds of people flocked to the Apax center in Phu Nhuan district to demand it.

At that time, Mr. Nguyen Anh Tuan, Apax's representative in dialogues with parents in his role as CEO, stated that over 80% of parents in Group 1 had received refunds. The amount to be paid to parents in Group 2 was double that of Group 1, approximately 50 billion VND.

Apax Leaders is a chain of English language centers for children, licensed since 2016. On its website, the chain states that it has 120 centers nationwide, with approximately 120,000 students. In Ho Chi Minh City, according to Mr. Tuan, Apax Leaders has over 15,000 students.

At the end of 2022, Apax Leaders faced numerous complaints from parents in Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi , Dak Lak, and Da Nang regarding the quality of teaching not meeting commitments, "abandoning customers with the money," and demands for tuition refunds.

In early March, the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Education and Training announced that it had transferred files related to Apax Leaders' activities to the Ho Chi Minh City Police Department at their request.

To date, Apax Leaders has reopened two of its 41 centers in Ho Chi Minh City, including Him Lam (District 6) and Phan Xich Long (Phu Nhuan District).

Le Nguyen

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