{"id":839585,"date":"2025-10-13T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-10-13T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=839585"},"modified":"2025-10-13T07:11:15","modified_gmt":"2025-10-13T05:11:15","slug":"new-owners-for-major-private-university-company-in-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/839585\/new-owners-for-major-private-university-company-in-south-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"New owners for major private university company in South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Old Mutual Private Equity (OMPE) has acquired Honoris United Universities, a major private education platform across Africa. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

OMPE bought a majority shareholding in Honoris from Actis Investments in early September as part of its sixth fund. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

OMPE manages billions in assets under management and raises billions in capital from institutional investors to buy unlisted companies. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Honoris is the largest pan-African private higher education network that operates in South Africa, Tunisia, Nigeria, Mauritius and Morocco. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The company owns Mancosa, Regent Business School, Red & Yellow, Fedisa and the Animation School in South Africa. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The company currently has over 100,000 students across 26 cities. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The network encompasses 16 institutions, including multidisciplinary universities, specialised schools, and technical and vocational institutes offering in-person and online learning..  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Speaking with BusinessTech, Chumani Kula, Co-Head, Old Mutual Private Equity, said the company invested in Honoris for several reasons. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kula said the Higher Education Institution operates in a tailwind sector with strong growth potential. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On top of this, education is a very defensive sector, with limited downside potential. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He added that acquiring Honoris aligns with OMPE\u2019s desire for a substantial impact as part of its ESG goals. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

OMPE also has a mandate to invest in the rest of Africa. Kula said that instead of investing directly into Africa, it backs \u201cworld-class\u201d management teams to expand across the continent. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Under OMPE\u2019s ownership, the business will be mainly black owned, emphasising the company\u2019s focus on inclusive economic growth. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The deal forms part of the continued investment momentum through its sixth fund, following the acquisition of Much Asphalt from JSE-listed AECI Limited earlier this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unlike public equity, which offers high liquidity and longer capital requirements, private equity investors will raise capital for large purchases with a roughly two-year timeline to find investments. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For institutional investors, private equity offers good diversification benefits and access to high returns, with OMPE delivering over 20% returns. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sales incoming <\/h2>\n\n\n
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While OMPE is acquiring businesses via its latest fund, businesses from prior funds are now \u201cexit-ready\u201d and will be sold soon. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Per the investment cycle in private equity, exits are essential in delivering returns to shareholders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was recently the case after OMPE sold the medical device company Medhold to its competitor, Sanlam\u2019s private equity business. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

OMPE has helped increase Medhold\u2019s earnings by nearly three times since its acquisition in 2018. In a similar situation to Honoris, Kula noted that Medhold operated in a defensive sector in healthcare.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

OMPE backed Medhold as the company wanted to return to the healthcare sector after selling its stake in Life Healthcare. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On top of this, OMPE sold Sportsman\u2019s Warehouse owner Holdsport to the UK Sport Frasers Group in late 2024. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The sales don\u2019t stop there, with Kula telling BusinessTech that several businesses are now \u201cexit-ready.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This includes broadcasting giant Primedia, which owns the 702, 94.7 and several other prominent radio stations. It also operates in outdoor advertising and productions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The group is also looking to sell its stake in 10X Investments, an investment company that offers unit trusts, retirement annuities and other deals. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is also looking to sell food producer in2Food, which supplies products to Woolworths, Marks & Spencer, Waitrose and local quick service restaurants. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Old Mutual Private Equity has acquired Honoris United Universities, which operates several tertiary education institutions in South Africa. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":95,"featured_media":839587,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[12346,23787,23783,23786,23782,13099,4530,17551],"class_list":["post-839585","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-10x","tag-animation-school","tag-in2food","tag-mancosa","tag-medhold","tag-old-mutual-private-equity","tag-primedia","tag-regent-business-school"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/839585","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/95"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=839585"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/839585\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":839737,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/839585\/revisions\/839737"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/839587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=839585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=839585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=839585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}