Bye Bye Geos: Another Major Chain of English Conversation Schools Collapses in Failure
It seems like only yesterday when English conversation school chain NOVA collapsed and was brought out by G Communications. Now the same thing has happened with another major Eikaiwa chain, Geos:
Major English conversation school operator Geos Corp. said Wednesday it has started bankruptcy procedures at the Tokyo District Court, which ordered its assets protected from creditors.
The Tokyo-based school’s total liabilities are said to be 7.5 billion yen.
The school operator said it would hand over about 230 of its 330 schools nationwide to Nagoya-based G.communication Co. and shutter the remaining 100.
The transfer would allow 29,000 of Geos’ 36,800 students to continue studying at their current schools, Geos said. Additionally, about 7,800 students at the locations slated for closure could keep studying if they agree to transfer to nearby Geos schools.
N-H-K News reported on the collapse last night (For English audio, cover up the left side of your headphones):
It seems that some students are totally shocked this has happened. One guy said he called Geos just the day before and was told everything was okay and to come to class the next day. When he arrived, he found the doors shut with a bankruptcy notice. Like other students, he seems to have missed the signs that Geos was in serious trouble : there were news reports about Geos’ operations in Australia being collapsing without notice just a few months ago.
Read more about the collapse of Geos at Let’s Japan dot Org, which always has interesting discussion threads.
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