Value Creation Case Studies

Tenby Education Group (Tenby)

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Tenby Education Group (Tenby)

Background

  • Tenby Schools is the largest network of private schools servicing the mid-tier segment with schools in six locations
  • Tenby offers a mix of national and international curriculums with full-fledged facilities at a reasonable price

Investment Rationale

  • Largest network of private schools in Malaysia with a total student population of 4,600 students
  • Opportunity to grow the school network further with two identified locations for expansion
  • Increased demand for private international education.

Transaction Details

Investment type
Majority investment in a strong Malaysian company
Acquisition Date
March 2015 and March 2016
Ownership
100%
Partial Divestment
17 Jan 2018

Key Value Creation Metrics

  • Centralising Finance and HR Management

    • Ekuinas assisted in the implementation and rollout of a centralised Finance system to all school locations to ease collection of financial and operational information.
    • We also assisted in streamlining HR processes such as centralised recruitment and payroll to benefit from scale.

  • Improved Utilisation of Campus Management System

    • Increased the utilisation of an existing campus management system throughout all schools to improve student performance tracking and responsiveness to parents
    • Increased utilisation of the student performance module to monitor student progress and allowed increased interfacing with the Parent’s portal to enable parents monitor student performance online. As a result, parents and students engagement and satisfaction increased.

  • Strengthening Leadership And Streamlining HR Costs

    • Ekuinas recruited a new CEO to lead the group and promoted internal candidates to senior positions such as Campus Principal. We also put more focus on HR quality, limiting the number of expats to only key positions and putting more emphasis on training local staff in order to get the appropriate quality for costs

  • Key Financial Metrics Over Investment Holding Period

    • Top line revenue growth of 3.7% CAGR
    • EBITDA growth of 4.6% CAGR
    • Increased EBITDA margin from 17.2% to 17.7%
    • Exit generated returns of 2.55x money multiple or 49.14% IRR

Ekuinas was very supportive especially the EXCO members as they took the role of a strategic investor and allowed the management to run the business independently. It was a good opportunity to work with Ekuinas as they have a diverse group of professionals.

Michelle Chan

Group Financial Controller