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MARC HASENFUSS: Curro’s top-notch report and finally a win for Winhold
For those still wanting to do their homework on fast-growing private education specialist Curro Holdings, the latest annual report has some useful information. What caught my eye is that Curro, despite its aggressive expansion, has kept its discipline around bad debts. The annual report notes that school fees have on average increased by 9.5%, or 11.2% if acquisitions and new schools that opened in 2016 are excluded. Net bad debts as a percentage of revenue were 1.1% in the year to end-December 2016. The figure was 1.2% in financial 2012, and in the ensuing years has never reached higher than that percentage. In fact, in financial 2014 the net bad debt ratio percentage was just 0.4%. Considering the astounding top-line growth notched up by Curro since listing in 2011, this is a commendable achievement that will reinforce notions that the company’s long-term business model is sturdy. Curro parents — like those in many other schools — are offered a 5% discount off annual school fees t...
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