Contact: Kristen Lacaillade Phone: 908-310-0306 Email: mediacontacts@ets.org
PRINCETON, N.J., USA (June 15, 2021) — ETS today announced that it has acquired the TOEFL® assets of the Council on International Educational Exchange (CIEE)-Japan. The nonprofit served as the Country Master Distributor for the TOEFL ITP® tests, TOEFL® Practice Online (TPO®) tests and the Criterion® service and provided outreach services for the TOEFL iBT® test in Japan. Relevant TOEFL operations in the country for TOEFL ITP tests and TPO tests, in addition to Japan support services for the centrally administered TOEFL iBT test (including the Home Edition) and TOEFL® Essentials™ tests, will now be managed through a newly established subsidiary, ETS Japan. The acquisition was led by the organization’s private equity investment and M&A execution arm, ETS Strategic Capital. Nemoto Hitoshi, formerly of CIEE-Japan, will lead ETS Japan as Country Manager.
“Our establishment of ETS Japan further underscores ETS’s commitment to the Japanese market and our continued support of language learners in the country working to improve their English- language proficiency skills,” said Mohammad Kousha, Associate Vice President at ETS. “We look forward to continuing to deliver the high-quality, valid assessment and learning solutions we are known for through ETS Japan.”
For more than 70 years, CIEE has helped hundreds of thousands of students and educators gain the knowledge and skills necessary to live and work in a globally interdependent and culturally diverse world. In 1965, CIEE established an office in Tokyo, Japan and for the last 40 years, has worked closely with ETS, administrating TOEFL tests and acting as a representative in Japan for various ETS products and services such as the TOEFL ITP, TPO, and the Criterion service. CIEE will continue to operate their study abroad centers in Tokyo and Kyoto.
“We are excited to join ETS and continue our work in providing Japanese learners access to the portfolio of TOEFL assessment products,” said Nemoto Hitoshi, country manager of ETS Japan. “Our work now as ETS Japan will continue seamlessly for our more than 500 clients and hundreds of thousands of students, providing them with the leading English-language assessments in the world.”
ETS Japan will help the organization continue as a strong partner for research and development as well as new product development initiatives in the country while also working to identify new opportunities for business expansion.
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About ETS Japan
ETS Japan, based in Tokyo, Japan, is a subsidiary of ETS headquartered in Princeton, N.J., USA. ETS Japan is the in-country arm that brings the organization’s wide-ranging expertise in education and learning to test takers and learners. The subsidiary is the Country Master Distributor for the TOEFL ITP® tests, TOEFL Practice Online® tests (TPO®) and the Criterion® service, and provides outreach services for the TOEFL iBT® tests (including TOEFL iBT® Home Edition) and the new TOEFL® Essentials™ test in Japan. With decades of experience serving learners in Japan, the staff of ETS Japan offer deep expertise and insight into delivering high-quality English language learning and assessment solutions as well as new business opportunities to organizations, institutions and individuals in the country. www.etsjapan.jp
About ETS Strategic Capital
ETS Strategic Capital serves as the private equity investment and M&A execution arm for ETS, its subsidiaries and its partners sourcing transactions within both the domestic United States and internationally. The unit partners with the broader EdTech ecosystem to identify and execute deals, coordinate with other ETS business units to identify opportunities and needs, network with professional services firms with education expertise, and build direct relationships with businesses internationally — especially within Europe, Asia Pacific, Southeast Asia, Latin America and the Middle East & Africa (MENA) regions. ETS Strategic Capital targets private equity investments that are typically in Series B, C or later; acquisitions that are middle-market in scale; and growth partnerships that may involve joint ventures (JVs), channel-affiliate or distribution agreements, Intellectual Property (IP) licensing and technology-transfer relationships. www.ets.capital
About ETS
At ETS, we advance quality and equity in education for people worldwide by creating assessments based on rigorous research. ETS serves individuals, educational institutions and government agencies by providing customized solutions for teacher certification, English language learning, and elementary, secondary and postsecondary education, and by conducting education research, analysis and policy studies. Founded as a nonprofit in 1947, ETS develops, administers and scores more than 50 million tests annually — including the TOEFL® and TOEIC® tests, the GRE® tests and The Praxis Series® assessments — in more than 180 countries, at over 9,000 locations worldwide. www.ets.org
