Actis sets up Africa education platform

ACTIS, the UK-based private equity firm specialising in emerging markets, has created a $275 million higher education platform spanning nine countries in Africa as it looks to cater to rapidly growing educational needs.

The pan-African initiative, which the group has branded Honoris United Universities, has brought together private universities and colleges across 48 campuses in 30 cities in Africa.

Honoris already serves 27 000 students but the company expects the student population to grow to 100 000 in the next three to five years as more join and Actis purchases institutions to add to the platform.

Actis, which to date has invested more than $500 million in private education in places such as China and Brazil, began putting money in Africa in December 2014 when it acquired the Université Centrale Group, a post-secondary education group, in Tunisia.

The private equity group, which spun out of the UK’s development finance institution in 2004, has identified an explosion in educational needs as the population expands and economies demand new skills.

By 2050, Africa will add 1,2 billion people on the continent, amounting to more than half of the global growth, according to UN estimates.

“The sheer number is big,” says Luis Lopez, the newly appointed chief executive of Honoris United Universities.

Actis has also announced the expansion of Honoris United Universities to South Africa by agreeing to invest in two of the country’s leading private distance learning institutions, Mancosa and Regent Business School.

The private equity investor is also adding EMSI, a leading private engineering school in Morocco, to the platform as it expands in French-speaking Africa.

The network spans Tunisia, Morocco, South Africa, Namibia, Zambia, Swaziland, Mauritius, Botswana and Zimbabwe.

The new education platform will offer more than 100 degrees in fields including health sciences, engineering, IT, business, law and political science.

Students will access education through on-campus lectures, learning centres and also distance learning, Actis says.

Actis has a history of buying companies and combining them in a shared platform.

In 2010 the private equity group invested $90 million in three payment businesses in Egypt, Jordan and South Africa.

In six years, which included considerable upheaval in the region that resulted in the so-called Arab Spring, it built a business that today has contracts with 140 financial institutions across 40 countries. — Financial Times.