STI acquires West Negros University

MANILA, Philippines - Listed academic institution STI Education Systems Holdings Inc. has boosted its schools lineup, this time expanding in Western Visayas.

In a disclosure, STI Holdings said it entered into a “memorandum of agreement with the Agustin family for the acquisition of a controlling stake in West Negros University (WNU) Corp.”

WNU owns and operates the Bacolod City-based West Negros University, which offers pre-elementary, elementary, secondary and tertiary education and graduate courses.

STI Holdings allotted P390 million for its schools acquisition program this year while committing to continuously expand its own portfolio with the groundbreaking of two new schools.

The acquisition fund will be sourced from the proceeds of an equity offering last year.

In November, STI Holdings raised P2.36 billion through a follow-on offering. Businessman Eusebio Tanco consolidated all his education assets — the STI chain of schools, a 40-percent stake in Philippine Women’s University (PWU) and iAcademy – under STI Holdings, and a 20-percent interest in STI Investments, which holds Tanco’s strategic investment in Philplans, a leading pre-need savings program with plans dedicated to education, and Philcare.

Last month, STI Holdings broke ground for STI College-Calamba in Laguna and STI College-Las Piñas.

The expansion program is expected to boost enrolment to as much as 100,000 students in 2015.

In the April to December period last year, STI Holdings’ student population rose to 68,363 from 66,740 a year earlier, resulting in increased revenues from tuition and other school fees.

To date, the company has 85 schools nationwide, of which 55 are franchised and 30 are company-owned. It has 67,361 students for STI alone and 72,000 including other affiliate schools PWU and iAcademy.

STI allotted P1.528 billion for capital expenditures this year and P2.39 billion for 2014.

In the nine-month period last year, profits of STI Holdings more than doubled to P578.74 million from P219.32 million a year ago as revenues climbed nearly 10 percent to P1.21 billion.