Ba Isago aims high

Ba Isago, a leading private tertiary institution in the country, is upbeat at prospects of offloading half of its issued shares to a South African education group, saying it will help the company expands its student base and presence in Botswana and beyond the borders.

This week, it emerged that, Ba Isago has invited Curro Holdings as a 50 percent shareholder and strategic partner, marking the first biggest trans-boundary acquisition in the education industry to date. The Gaborone-headquartered university said the deal will ‘offer additional expansion opportunities’.

The growth will also be visible in the enrollment base at the 13-year old institution. With Curro on board, the university will be in a better position to increase its current enrollment from 3100 to 8800 in the next five years. Like other local private universities and colleges, the institution has been hard hit by government’s decision to cut spending on tertiary students this year.

The two companies have not disclosed any financial figures to the deal. “The deal is yet to be completed and we are not at liberty to disclose any financial information,” Ba Isago Business Development officer Anamika Singh told BG Business on Wednesday. A press conference to clarify any ‘burning issues’ regarding the deal will be held today (Friday), announced Singh. The founder of the school, Odirile Gabasiane is confident that the historic deal will come in handy for the company and indeed for the country’s broader objective of becoming a knowledge economy.

The Ba Isago boss has thanked the education ministry’s support over the years. Ba Isago offers various courses, starting with certificates to degrees. Fields of study include among others, finance, education, real estate and built environment. On the other side, Curro is a Johannesburg Stock Exchange company which runs more than 100 schools in South Africa, the region’s biggest economy. The company plans to have 200 schools including those in Botswana by 2020. The deal to acquire part of Ba Isago will be done through Curro subsidiary, Embury Institute for Higher Education.