RAMON del Rosario-led Phinma Corp. is planning to acquire schools in Vietnam in 2025 in a bid to broaden its portfolio and strengthen its regional presence following an expansion in Indonesia.
"We're looking [at] Vietnam. We're already looking at schools [there], which are probably [worth] about P300–P500 million," Meliton Salazar Jr., Phinma president and chief operating officer, said in a briefing last week.
Although no particular school has been identified yet, Salazar said the company was looking for tertiary schools that could accommodate between 3,000 and 5,000 students.
Phinma hopes to find one by the end of the year and purchase the property by "late 2025."
"We're so preliminary in Vietnam. Right now, our priority really is Indonesia," Salazar said, adding they still do not have a local partner in Vietnam.
Phinma has expanded in Indonesia by establishing a management company that signed a partnership deal with a local foundation, as Indonesian laws currently prohibit foreigners from operating formal education institutions.
"Schools in Indonesia... must be owned by a local foundation," Salazar explained.
He said Phinma partners with a local foundation to be able to manage the schools.
"We transfer our technology. They kind of license or pay us for that, but we ourselves cannot own schools."
Education subsidiary Phinma Education Holdings Inc. notched its highest enrollment in 2023, recording nearly 150,000 students in the Philippines and Indonesia, 18 percent higher compared to the previous school year.
For calendar year 2023, the subsidiary reported a net income of P1.2 billion and consolidated revenues of P5.44 billion, boosting the parent firm's earnings by 6.7 percent to P1.6 billion from P1.5 billion in 2022.
In the next five years, Salazar said Phinma was targeting increasing enrollment in schools in Indonesia and the Philippines to 50,000 and 350,000, respectively.
Phinma expects continued growth momentum in the Philippines as it intends to expand its footprint in Metro Manila and provincial areas.
The company is currently in talks to acquire a new school in Metro Manila and hopes to close the deal sometime in the third quarter of 2024.
"I cannot reveal who we're in discussions with, but we are in discussions [to purchase] one more in Metro Manila ... We want one in San Pablo (Laguna)... Then we're looking for schools in Cavite and Davao," Salazar noted.
For 2024, the group has programmed a capital spending of P4.5 billion, up from last year's P3 billion, with almost half of the current budget going towards the education business.
Phinma shares were unchanged at P20.45 apiece last Friday.
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