Manipal plans overseas spread

Close on the heels of taking up a 50 per cent equity stake in U21 Global, the online graduate school, Bangalore-based Manipal Education is eyeing acquisitions of online and brick and mortar educational institutions outside India in a year or two. The company is already talking to education players in Malaysia, the Carribean, and West Asia.

This is part of Manipal Education's inorganic and organic growth strategy outside India in the coming years for which close to $100-150 million has been earmarked.

Under the strategy, Manipal also plans to set up more campuses abroad in countries including Oman, Mauritius, Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam among others. Currently, the company has international campuses in Nepal, Malaysia, Dubai and Antigua.

Anand Sudarshan, MD and CEO of Manipal Education said the international campuses would run various courses like Masters in Research, Bachelors programmes and others depending on the country.

Typically, setting up a campus could take an investment of anything between $10 million and $50 million which would be a part of the earmarked fund.

"The company, at present, gets nearly 47 per cent of its revenues from its non-India campuses. This is expected to go up to 60 per cent by 2010 on the back of the growth in foreign markets through acquisitions and new campuses," said Sudarshan.

He added that the challenges for any company in the education sector "" wanting to set up presence abroad "" is finding capital and understanding and implementing local regulations. This is how his company has managed to add learning centres since 2004, he added.

Manipal Education also runs two universities and 30 institutes with 125,000 students studying in its Indian campuses and 5,000 students on its international campuses. It has added learning centres in 18 countries since 2004.