ACE Education

Who owns ACE Education?

ACE Education is a French Education company, currently owned by Oakley Capital since 2021.

About ACE Education

ACE Education, which operates as ACE Group, is a Paris-based private higher-education platform running a network of vocational schools focused on passion-driven professional fields, spanning sports management, design and animation, fashion business, luxury hospitality and tourism, and gaming and creative technology. Its schools trade under established brands including AMOS, the sports management business school, the ESDAC design school group, the CMH luxury hospitality and tourism school, and ESBS in Valencia, Spain. The group positions itself around employability and industry connection, drawing on partnerships with several thousand companies and reporting that a large majority of graduates find work within six months. According to its own disclosures, the platform now educates around 8,000 students across 46 campuses in France and abroad, with roughly 234 staff and about 4,000 partner companies.

Ownership journey

The group traces its origins to AMOS, a sports management business school founded in France in the mid-2000s by Patrick Touati, positioned as one of the country's first schools dedicated to the sector. Oakley Capital first backed the platform in 2017, acquiring AMOS as the foundation for a broader higher-education group. In 2021 Oakley Capital Origin Fund I invested approximately EUR 40 million alongside founder Patrick Touati, consolidating the schools into the diversified ACE Group across sports management, design, fashion and hospitality. Oakley Capital Origin Fund I remains an active shareholder and ACE Education is still listed as a current portfolio company, with no exit or secondary transaction recorded.

Under PE ownership

Since the 2021 investment, ACE Education has widened from a sports-focused school into a multi-disciplinary group, adding brands in fashion, design, hospitality and creative technology through bolt-on acquisitions such as the EIDM fashion and styling school in 2022 and the ENAAI applied-arts and animation school. The platform has grown substantially in scale, expanding from a base of roughly 30 campuses and around 5,500 students at the time of the deal toward a reported network of 46 campuses and about 8,000 students. Operationally, the group has pursued new campus openings in smaller cities, centralized shared functions, strengthened teaching-quality oversight and introduced performance monitoring and ESG initiatives. Company disclosures around this period pointed to enrolment rising more than 40 percent over twelve months and a graduate employment rate above 80 percent within six months.