Curro’s private university business lists on the JSE
Curro Holdings, the largest for-profit independent school group in South Africa, has listed its tertiary education business, Stadio Holdings on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE).
Stadio is a subsidiary of private education group Curro and comes to market after Curro’s decision to unbundle its tertiary education businesses. It intends to acquire and grow existing registered higher education brands, fund further expansions of existing brands and oversee the greenfield development of new campuses.
Stadio is the 15th company to list on the JSE this year.
On Tuesday (3 October), Stadio said it intends to raise up to R640 million by way of a rights offer – issuing 256 million shares at a subscription price of 250 cents per share.
The group said it aims to raise capital to bridge funding provided to Stadio by Curro. It will also fund acquisitions that are in various stages of negotiation, while also covering the cost of the capital raising and listing process.
Stadio (ticker: SDO) has listed under the “Specialised Consumer Services” sector of the main board and brings the number of companies listed in that sector to four. The sector has a total market capitalisation of just over R25 billion.
Curro provides education services to approximately 47,000 learners in 127 schools across South Africa and Namibia. It opened its doors as a provider of pre-school and school-based education in 1998 and was listed on the JSE in 2011.
Stadio CEO, Dr Chris van der Merwe, said: “Our country needs to accommodate another million students in higher education if it wants to compete with global trends.
“In this regard we believe that Stadio can grow over time from the current 13,000 students to more than 100 000 students and in doing so provide South Africa with well qualified and equipped citizens who can help this country to achieve acceptable economic growth levels once again.
“This aim aligns with the National Development Plan of South Africa, which seeks to achieve 1.6 million students in the Higher Education space by 2030,” van der Merwe said.
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