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Johannesburg - Curro [JSE:COH] said it’s on track to almost double the schools it runs to 200 by 2020 as South Africa’s largest private-school operator reported a 59% surge in first-half profit and plans to build nine campuses this year.
The company will spend about R950m building the schools, Cape Town-based Curro said in a statement on Tuesday. It is investing a further R500m in expanding existing campuses across the country. The operator raised R1.07bn by offering stock to existing shareholders in May.
More parents are seeking alternatives to government schools for their children in South Africa, with the quality of education ranked 120th out of 140 countries in a survey by the World Economic Forum last year. Half of all pupils who start school drop out before completing the 12-year curriculum, state data shows. The national pass rate at state facilities fell to 70.7% in 2015, a second year of declines.
Poor school results have constrained growth in the continent’s largest economy, with companies battling to hire skilled workers in a country where more than one in four job seekers is unemployed.
Profit climbed to R81m in the six months ended June 30 from R51m a year earlier, Curro said. Revenue increased 24% to R705m, while earnings per share rose 51% to R0.22.
The stock rose 1.4% to R42.69 on Monday, paring the decline this year to 25%.
