It is a joint venture between the Melewar Academia Group of Malaysia, the Shriram Group of Chennai and the Ceylinko Group of Sri Lanka. The Melewar Group headed by the Malaysian prince Tunku Iskander Abdullah runs educational institutions in many countries including Malaysia, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Cambodia and Myanmar. It has taken the lead to launch the AEC Business School in Chennai and holds majority equity of 51 per cent. The Shriram Group of Chennai holds 40 per cent and the Ceylinko Group of Sri Lanka has the balance nine per cent stake in the equity of Rs 1 crore for the joint venture.

According to chief executive officer of AEC Business School V Chandra Shekar, the school will offer the Maastricht School of Management (MSM) programmes, a worldclass MBA programme from the Netherlands which besides focussing on traditional areas like accounting and finance will also provide comprehensive knowledge in emerging areas like e-business. The MSM programme is rated among the top 40 MBA programmes in the world by The Herald Tribune.The plan, Chandra Shekar revealed, is to induct only a limited number of 15 to 20 students initially and impart quality education to them. The course is for a duration of 18 months and students have a choice of doing final studies for three weeks in the Netherlands. This programme is slated to start from August-September this year.

The school also proposes to offer tuitions for certification in ACCA (the Association of Chartered and Certified Accountants) from July-August and the CIM (Chartered Institute of Marketing) from January next year. A tie-up with Emile Wolfe reputedly the world's biggest trainers in ACCA and CIM courses is being explored. These professional courses, according to Chandra Shekar, will enable those qualifying to explore global employment opportunities, especially in the South-East Asian and the West Asian countries.

The school has also tied up with Temasek Polytechnic of Singapore to offer a variety of diploma courses covering information technology, law and management, logistics operations etc. These courses are to start from Augustthis year.