Curro to list tertiary division

‘Sector has huge potential’

INDEPENDENT schools operator Curro Holdings will list its tertiary education division as a separate entity this year.

Outgoing chief executive Chris van der Merwe yesterday said the group decided on the listing after its research pointed to potential growth in the tertiary education sector.

Van der Merwe said Curro had realised impressive growth among its other divisions.

He said while more details on the listing would be provided at a later stage, the company also wanted to list the education division in order to attract more students.

“We are going to list our tertiary component separately sometime this year,” Van der Merwe said.

“We are going to inform the market about the full details once we are ready to do that.

The company said during the presentation of its year-end results yesterday that it had extended its Embury campus in Durban to enrol more students next year in order to address the need for tertiary education in the country.

Curro said as part of the expansion plan, its Waterfall Estate campus in Johannesburg had been accredited to enrol 1 600 students and was earmarked to be in operation by the end of this year.

It said its Montana campus in Pretoria, with a capacity for 1 200 students, had also been accredited and should be ready to accept students by the middle of this year.

Van der Merwe said its research showed that 50 000 potential students did not have access to tertiary education because of the shortage of universities.

He said group intended to capture the market

“Parents cannot send these learners overseas because it would be too expensive for them. Curro would fill the gap in this regard,” Van der Merwe said.

Curro’s tertiary-education company will initially offer four bachelor’s degrees and increase the number over time.

In the year to the end of December, the group reported a 69 percent increase in headline earnings to R160 million, from R160m a year ago.

Headline earnings per share shot up 55 percent to 43.9 cents a share, from 28.3c a share.

The group contained bad debt to 1 percent of turnover.

Learner enrolment rose 14 percent, from 41 864 in January 2016 to 47 589 at the beginning of this year.

In preparation for the listing, Van der Merwe will step down as chief executive and assume the role of non-executive chairman and strategic adviser of the tertiary education company.

Nolwandle Mthombeni, an equity analyst at Mergence Investment Managers, said the company had become a dominant player in the private-schooling market.

Mthombeni said it was therefore only natural for it to expand grow into tertiary education.

“This is evidenced by listed competitor ADvTECH, which had a head start and is currently the biggest provider of private tertiary education in South Africa, with over 29 000 enrolments,” Mthombeni said.

“They play a role in the entire value chain.Outside of teacher demand, it is the best time to penetrate the private tertiary education market, as we will see a huge growth in the private tertiary education sector as a whole over the next few years.”

Curro shares rose 1.39 percent on the JSE yesterday to close at R48.99.