PHINMA Education Holdings Inc., a wholly-owned unit of diversified conglomerate Phinma Corp., is acquiring a 95.6-percent stake in a nursing school for P370.2 million.
Phinma said in a disclosure to the stock exchange its education unit signed an agreement to buy 57.347 shares of St. Jude College Inc. constituting 95.6 percent of the issued and outstanding stocks of the school.
St. Jude College in Manila started as a nursing school in 1968 before becoming a full-serviced educational institution serving 3,050 students in basic education, college and graduate school programs.
Known mainly for tertiary allied health science courses, it also offers programs in business, education, information technology, and hospitality.
Phinma Education’s network of schools include Southwestern University, Phinma Araullo University, Phinma University of Pangasinan, Phinma Cagayan de Oro and Phinma University of Iloilo.
Phinma Education in April made a tender offer to acquire between 55 percent and 100 percent of Laguna College of Business and Arts in Calamba for P313.2 million.
The company, however, did not proceed with the tender offer in July after only less than a majority of the stockholders of LCBA agreed to sell their shares.
Phinma Education last year made its first overseas venture by opening a health training cementer in Myanmar.
The company reported an eight percent increase in number of students to 58,837 for the school year 2017-2018. This translated into revenues of P1.5 billion, flat from the same period a year ago, as the government’s K to 12 education reform that added two senior high school years continued to adversely affect college freshmen enrollment.
Net income dropped to P98 million in the first nine months of 2017 from P253 million in the same period a year ago. Jenniffer B. Austria
