Mahesh Tutorials on fresh grounds, plans IPO

Mahesh Tutorials is poised to become the first such entity to go in for a private equity placement followed by a public issue. The Mumbai-based partnership entity offers coaching classes for school and college students.

Chairman and Managing Director Mahesh Shetty said work on converting the institution into a corporate entity would be completed by October.

At present, the major players in this sector are Chate Classes, Agarwal Classes, Tandem Classes and G K Shah Classes, but the industry is highly unorganised and fragmented.

The promoters of Mahesh Tutorials are Shetty and its current Chief Executive Officer (CEO) B Narayana Iyer.

"We are targeting a three-fold increase in our turnover to Rs 100 crore by 2008 from Rs 32 crore now," Iyer said. The number of branches will increase from 38 now to over 100. The investment in one centre will be around Rs 25 lakh to Rs 35 lakh.

According to analysts, the market size of tutorial sector in Mumbai alone is Rs 200 crore. Over 1 lakh students depend upon tutorial classes in English medium and 2 lakh in Hindi and Marathi mediums.