Ekuinas sells stake in Tenby

KUALA LUMPUR: Ekuiti Nasional Bhd (Ekuinas), the government linked private equity fund management company, has divested its entire 100% interest in the Tenby Education Group to International Schools Partnership (ISP).
Ekuinas CEO Syed Yasir Arafat Syed Abd Kadir said after eight years in operation, its divestment initiatives are progressing rapidly to accelerate the realisation of its investments.
Tenby, established in Ipoh in 1960, is a leading education group in Malaysia offering private national and international curricular across six campuses in Ipoh, Penang, Miri, Setia Alam, Johor Baru and Semenyih.
“The time and economic climate are right for us to exit Tenby as the divestment enables Ekuinas to generate positive returns to maintain the funds’ performances.
“Through this divestment, Ekuinas will substantially cover its original cost of investment and generate a positive internal rate of return of 45.7% and money multiples of 2.5 times the capital invested, including dividends received,” said Syed Yasir in a statement.
The sale marks Ekuinas’ eighth divestment, which brings the company’s total realisation proceeds to more than RM1 billion, including the partial divestment of Icon Offshore Bhd.
ISP was founded by a team of experienced school operators with both educational and commercial expertise, managing and providing education to 16,000 students in Pre-K-13 schools across Europe, North America, Central America and the Middle East.
Tenby presents an opportunity for ISP to expand into the Asean market, complementing the existing strengths of Tenby and adding a new dimension brought on by their educational and commercial expertise as well as their experiences from schools in other countries under its portfolio. With Tenby, ISP’s portfolio of schools will increase to 25.
Throughout the life of Ekuinas’ investment in Tenby, it has undertaken a few initiatives to aggressively grow revenue and earnings of the group, such as increasing student numbers from about 4,600 to over 5,000, and driving expansion through the opening of Tenby Ecohill in 2016 and Tenby Tropicana Aman, which is scheduled for 2018.
ISP CEO Steve Brown said the acquisition of Tenby marks its first acquisition in Southeast Asia.
“This demonstrates our ambition to grow our partnerships across different regions all over the world. Tenby schools are well respected within their community. We look forward to making further investments and continuing to grow the schools.”