Category: Eikaiwa

Collapsed English-teaching company NOVA Corp. has unveiled the luxury office used by its former boss Nozomu Sahashi to the public, showing a bathroom overlooking the night scenery and expensive champagne and scotch whisky lined up at a bar counter. The 330-square-meter office, which has its own sauna and tea room, is located on the top…

Comparisons have been drawn between the business practices used by Nova Corp. and the scandal-hit nursing care provider Comsn Inc., as well as the manner in which both firms fell from grace. On June 13, the Economy, Trade and Industry Ministry suspended Nova for six months from signing up students on new contracts of one…

Former NOVA President Nozomu Sahashi has come under suspicion of unfairly profiting from the sale of overpriced video-phone equipment, a lawyer for the collapsed English-teaching company has announced. Toshiaki Higashibatake, a lawyer serving as a preservation administrator for NOVA, made the announcement at a news conference in Osaka. The lawyer said a company that was…

It’s said that the bigger they come, the harder they fall, and it’s difficult to imagine a harder fall than Nova’s. Following Nova Corp.’s well-documented troubles over the last few months, Japan’s biggest language school chain is now in the hands of administrators, and is likely to be declared bankrupt next month unless a backer…

The government has promised to offer support for Nova Corp. in seeking corporate sponsors to help its turnaround efforts, lawyers working for the failed language school chain said Monday. “We came here to ask for help to find sponsors and also for support to Nova students who have been unable to take lessons,” lawyer Toshiaki…

The Osaka Labor Bureau will ask Nova Corp.’s caretaker administrators to confirm the home addresses of those foreign instructors who return to their home countries without receiving wages from the English conversation school chain and be responsible for paying them, the bureau announced Monday. The firm has failed to pay foreign instructors since September. Since…

English conversation school chain operator Nova Corp. has filed for court protection from creditors after running into financial trouble under its president, Nozomu Sahashi, who has since been sacked by the company’s other board members. This is the first installment of a three-part series of articles taking an in-depth look at Nova’s collapse. The three…

Hundreds of British teachers in Japan face redundancy and possible eviction after the collapse of the country’s largest private provider of English language lessons. More than 900 Britons are among thousands of tutors who look set to lose their jobs following an announcement that the Nova school chain has filed for bankruptcy. The British embassy…

Failed foreign language school Nova Corp. <4655> said Tuesday the equity stake held by its former President Nozomu Sahashi and his family in the company fell sharply in the April-September first half of fiscal 2007 for unknown reasons. As of Sept. 30, Sahashi, founder of Nova, and an Osaka-based firm fully owned by him and…

Rakuten Inc. and Aeon Co., both suggested as potential companies to bail out critically endangered English conversation chain NOVA Corp., ruled out stepping in to save it Monday. NOVA’s 40 billion yen in debts and the likelihood any savior would have to taken over them appears to be scaring away saviors. “It’s extremely difficult even…