STI 9-mth net profit grows 18% to P624.3M

LISTED schools operator STI Holdings Inc. saw double- digit growth in profit and revenues in the nine months to December 2016 on the back of a higher number of enrollees across its schools during the period.

In a statement on Tuesday, STI Holdings said its April to December 2016 net income improved by 18 percent to P624.3 million from P527.8 million in the same period in 2015.

Revenues in the nine months rose 15 percent to P2.1 billion from P1.9 billion in the previous year.

STI Holdings said enrollees for school year 2016-2017 breached the 100,000 mark, as its schools admitted a total of 103,727 students, which is 22 percent higher than the 84,730 enrollees registered in the previous school year.

“Boosting the numbers are enrollees in the Senior High School (SHS) program offered by STI-branded schools, as well as iACADEMY and STI West Negros University (STI WNU). Combined, SHS students in these schools total 39,206,” the company said.

College courses and programs accredited by the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) also attracted 57,950 enrollees, while students taking courses under Technical Education and Skills Development Authority ( TESDA) reached 5,692. There are also 879 enrolled in the basic education offered by STI WNU.

As of end-December 2016, STI Hold- ings said its assets stood at P12 billion, up 15 percent from the P10.5 billion recorded at end-March last year.

Through its subsidiary STI Education Services Group (STI ESG), STI Holdings operates and manages 76 schools—37 of which are company- owned and 39 are franchised. Of these, 66 are STI colleges and the rest are education centers. With the completion of the new facilities for STI Las Piñas in July 2016, STI ESG increased its total student capacity to 119,191 students.

Aside from STI colleges, the company owns STI WNU, a university with a 12,000-student capacity that sits on a 3.1-hectare property in Bacolod City. The campus offers primary, secondary, tertiary, and post- graduate courses.

The group also owns and operates iACADEMY in Makati specializing in animation, mutimedia and digital arts, as well as De Los Santos STI Colleges, a health science and nursing school.

Currently, the company is working on constructing a new Yakal campus on a 2,332.5-square-meter parcel of land in Makati City. It is also planning to transform STI College-Tanauan in Batangas to be an agriculture-centered facility in partnership with Tony Tan Caktiong, the head honcho of leading fast food group Jollibee Foods Corp.

Established in 1928, STI Holdings is the investment vehicle of businessman Eusebio Tanco in the education sector.