Stadio expects a 27.6% rise in yearly earnings

Stadio Holdings expects headline earnings per share to be as much as 27.6% higher for the year ended December.

The private higher education group said on Thursday that its headline earnings per share (Heps) would rise to 23.5c- 25.5c from 20c a year ago.

Earnings per share would be as much as 30.7% higher, it said in a statement.

In December, the group increased its stake in Milpark Education to 83.1% after buying Brimstone Investment Corporation’s 12.8% share for R117.5m. The acquisition followed the purchase of 1.9% of Milpark from minorities for R15.4m earlier in that month.

Milpark Education was established in 1997 and offers distance learning and online higher education, focusing on business, commerce, accounting, finance, insurance and banking qualifications.

Stadio said last August that it expected even more room for student growth as it aims to enrol 56,000 students by 2026. Less than 40% of matriculants gain places at government universities, providing it with a big pool of potential students, it added.

It now offers almost 100 accredited courses, including law, policing, film, IT, architecture, education and chartered accounting.

The company, which owns brands such as AFDA, Milpark and Lisof, was spun out of PSGcontrolled private schools business Curro in 2017. Stadio is focused on offering affordable university and other tertiary courses via online tuition and physical campuses.

At the end of August, the company reported in its results for the six months to end-June that profit grew 21% year on year to R126.6m. Heps, a common profit measure in SA that excludes certain items, rose by a similar margin to 13.5c.

This was partly because of first-semester student numbers increasing 9% to 41,865, and more than a tenth to 46,254 when comparing August 2022 with August 2023.

By midafternoon on Thursday on the JSE, the company’s share price was up 1.24% at R4.91.