Saward Mitaree, founder and president of Smart Brain Co Ltd, said the company has 250 franchised outlets in 12 countries, including Singapore, India, Britain, Kuwait, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, United States and Canada.

It has 165 schools in Thailand, of which it owns 40 and 125 are franchised.

Under the franchise agreement signed yesterday, Goetomo Group is expected to open at least 500 Smart Brain schools in China over the next three years. Goetomo Group operates a diverse range of businesses in China and Singapore, including banking, real estate, textile and an undersea world amusement park.

Smart Brain will be the conglomerate's first foray into the education sector.

It will provide sub-franchise contracts to individual investors, starting in major provinces like Shenzhen, Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou, said Wu Hsioh Wen, managing director of Goetomo.

"China is a big market. Chinese people have used the abacus for thousands of years. Smart Brain will be a good business with good potential for the group as it will help Chinese students to develop their brains," Wen said.

"The business will be more acceptable by people with high spending power. [Chinese students] are willing to pay money if the programme is good," he said.

Saward said that in Thailand a seven-year franchise contract costs about Bt150,000. In foreign markets, a contract sells for between US$25,000 (Bt944,000) and $200,000 and lasts between seven and 10 years, depending on the size of business, he said. Each school takes between three and six months to break even, he said.

"We expect to open a franchised outlet in Australia in August this year and are also looking at the Swiss market," Saward said.

"We are negotiating with a local investor named Smart Way in Saudi Arabia, who would like to get a master franchise contract to expand Smart Brain outlets in seven to nine markets, including Morocco, Algeria, Libya, Egypt and Turkey," said Saward, who began franchising Smart Brain overseas in 2002.

Smart Brain was founded in 1996. Saward said the techniques used at Smart Brain stimulate both the right and left sides of the brain. More than 400,000 students around the globe have enrolled at Smart Brain schools over the past decade, he said.

"We expect to expand our franchised Smart Brain outlets to more than 20 countries in the next two to three years," Saward said. He aims to increase the international business from 20 per cent of the total to 60-70 per cent within three years.

Kwanchai Rungfapaisarn

The Nation