PHINMA Corp. said it is looking to acquire two new schools by next month, but these will still be located outside of Metro Manila.
Chito Salazar, Phinma Education Network chief, said the company is currently talking to one school and expects to close the deal within May.
“We’re talking now to one; we hope we can close this deal next month. We intend to get one more,” Salazar told reporters at the sidelines of the launch of the company’s Career Academy Asia.
He declined to give the name of the schools but these are in the Visayas and in southern Luzon. Phinma has allocated P2 billion to P3 billion in school acquisition since last year, but it has so far yielded limited results. Salazar said it is hard to negotiate with the school officials and will take years to complete and a few more years to turn around the institution that it acquired.
“If one acquisition pushes through, we have to stop for a while because there’s a lot of work to be done,” Salazar said.
Most of the schools Phinma acquired in the last few years were smaller schools located outside of Metro Manila. Salazar said Phinma is still looking for more acquisition.
“We think we’re interested [but] in big brand names. We’re confident we can run a big brand school. What’s important to us is that the brand name has to be recognized,” Salazar said.
So far, the company has launched its new venture Career Academy Asia, an institution that will focus on senior high-school education as part of the government’s K to 12 program.
Phinma is allocating P150 million to establish three branches of Career Academy in the country. These will be in Makati City , and one branch each in the upscale areas in the Visayas and Mindanao. The school offers specialized programs, such as fashion design, graphic design and hospitality and will have partners with schools overseas.
Phinma’s current network of schools include Araullo University, Cagayan de Oro College, University of Pangasinan and University of Iloilo (UI), and two branches, AU-South and Cagayan de Oro College-Puerto, providing basic and tertiary education. Enrollment increased across all schools, growing 16 percent to 36,764 students in June 2014. COC enrollment notably increased over 19 percent on strong contribution from its Puerto satellite campus, making it the largest higher education institution in the city.
Freshman enrollment at UI increased 20 percent to over 3,600 students on continuing efforts to provide better value for the school’s programs.