ANTHONY CLARK: Stadio and lessons from Curro’s past
There was much scepticism about Curro once — just as there is now with Stadio
As an analyst, I was probably the first researcher to sniff out Curro Holdings when, after a lunch with Zeder CEO Antonie Jacobs, he stated that PSG Group had just bought a stake in a small business that may interest me. That "small business" in which PSG Group acquired a 50% stake for R50m in 2009 was Curro Holdings — now a R15bn education colossus. Could the recent unbundling from Curro of its new tertiary interests be the second bite of the education cherry for investors? The track record of Curro founder Chris van der Merwe alongside the funding abilities of PSG Group suggests so. Back when Curro was introduced to the JSE AltX via an unbundling from Paladin Capital in 2011, there was much market scepticism at its business model and stratospheric valuation. There was no institutional shareholder and, for years, Curro’s growth was funded by majority owner PSG and committed PSG shareholders and acolytes. I was one of them and more than 1,000% later we are sitting pretty. At the Cur...
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