EuroKids International Ltd, a Mumbai-based school education company, plans to expand its presence in the K-12 segment in the city by setting up two greenfield EuroSchools, one each in Hyderabad and Secunderabad, with an investment in the range of Rs 30-50 crore.
The actual investment would depend on the cost of land, of which it would require 2 - 2.5 acres for each school, Prajodh Rajan, board member and head of EuroSchool operations, EuroKids, told Business Standard here on Wednesday. The company already has 30 franchised pre-schools in the city as well as two company-owned, company-operated EuroSchools at Madhapur and Banjara Hills with a capacity of 800 students each.
Rajan said, "Hyderabad is a key focus market for us. We are also looking at acquisitions of suitable, established schools. We are expecting to close a deal for one such school in the next 15-20 days." Its pre-schools in Hyderabad are the most successful in the country in terms of student strength, which averaged 150 compared to a national average of around 94, according to Rajan.
At present, the company has 784 pre-schools (96 percent of which are franchised) and 17 K-12 schools (all company-owned) in the country, and plans to increase these to 1,000 and 30 in the next two-three years. It would focus on south and west of the country, and was evaluating options in Chennai, Coimbatore, Pune, Visakhapatnam and Vijayawada, apart from Hyderabad. It would fund all its investments from internal accruals, Rajan said.
International plans
Mainly targeting the expatriate Indian communities in West Asia and Singapore, the company plans to set up 10 EuroSchools in UAE over the next two years, and has tied up property for one on the East Coast of Singapore. About 50 percent of these would be company-owned while the rest are to be franchisees. It has set up its first EuroKids pre-school in Jumeirah with an investment of Rs 3.5 crore, and signed a master franchise agreement with the government in Saudi Arabia for setting up pre-schools there.
EuroKids started as a publishing joint venture between Indian Express (Bombay) and Egmont Publishing of Denmark in 1998. When the two partners decided to exit, the management bought out the company in 2004. Later in 2008, Educomp invested Rs 50 crore for a 50 percent stake, while the rest remained with four promoters.
EuroKids' K-12 operations are independently managed though Educomp is also present in that segment. The latter is only a strategic investor and equity partner in the company, and would share knowledge with it, Rajan said. EuroKids is continuing with its licensed publishing business, marketing 250 live titles a year from, among others, Disney and BBC Worldwide, apart from partnering with Gali Gali Sim Sim television programme.